As a resident of Brighton for over a decade, and a lover of the Fringe festival, it always strikes me as hugely problematic that incredible events such as the Fringe, which are so integral to pushing the boundaries in one area (in this case the performing arts), are not also striving to be at the forefront when it comes to environmentalism. Brighton Fringe is a wonderful event that takes place in the city each May (this year, 2019, it runs from 3rd May - 2nd June). It sees lots of corners of Brighton brought even more vividly to life than usual and provides a platform for a plethora of UK and international creatives who are at the forefront of their art forms. Many eateries in Brighton demonstrate that single use plastics can be easily avoided. This map by Plastic Free Pledge provides information of Brighton establishments making efforts to eradicate single use plastics from their services: https://www.plasticfreepledge.com/south-east I don't wish in any way to damage the reputation of the magnificent Brighton Fringe through this petition, but let's ask the organisers to ensure that it can operate in the most sustainable and thoughtful way possible.

Aldi say they will continue to wrap their products in plastic for a 'better check out experience'. But Aldi shoppers want a better life experience for the planet! Aldi's shortsighted plastic policy adds to the trillions of kilos of plastic and micro plastics in our landfills and our seas. It filters down to our ground water, it gets into our fish, and we then eat it. Plastic netting from Aldi lemons and tangerines entangles and chokes seabirds. Plastic film on Aldi meat is absorbed into the chicken or salmon it comes into contact with. With a growing part of the market in the UK, urge this Supermarket of the Year to get with the Zero Plastic programme – or you'll shop elsewhere.

London Blackcabs drive an estimated 460 million miles/year. Up to 50% of those miles are empty. [1] December 2018 study stated that some blackcabs emit up to 30 times more pollution than equivalent private cars! [2] As even ambulances have to pay the mayor's pollution charge, then black cabs should not be exempted. Blackcabs carry only 1% of all trips in London.[3] But blackcabs make up to 40% of all cars & 20% of all traffic in cczone. [4] Blackcabs are exempt from congestion & pollution charges, but minicab drivers are paying the congestion charge once per day from April 8th. New York imposed a congestion charge on cab-users rather than cabbies and that is what we want. Tyre & road particulates created by cars and cabs are carcinogenic and damage the lungs of our kids for life. Even new electric cars & cabs emit large amounts of these lethal particulates. We need fewer as well as cleaner cabs. Blackcabs are not public-transport. For the health of those using buses, walking and cycling, for London's economy & to reduce climate emissions the charge needs to be added. Those with disabilities would be exempted from the cab-user charge. Petition hosted by Stop Killing Cyclists. Please share on social media. Thank you! ___ Notes: 1. Blackcabs drive 468 million miles: Nov 2018 TfL data said there are 23,400 blackcabbies. Insure Taxi survey found average blackcabbie mileage is 20,000 miles per annum. 2. Blackcabs emit up to 30 times more lethal NOx than equivalent cars: True Report Dec. 2018 3. Blackcabs make up just 1% of all trips: TfL Report Travel in London Report 10. Pg. 22. 4. Cabs (mini + black) make up 64% of cars in cczone: travel In London Report 9 Table 6.6 pg. 187. Blackcabs make up 20% of total traffic when you include buses & trucks, private hire vehicles 12%, and private cars 18%. Blackcabs thus make up 40% of just cars in cczone.

Financial feasibility has been cited as the reason for ceasing all creche services at council run leisure facilities in East Lothian, but we would urge Enjoy Leisure to consider the wider impact of these cuts on children and families in the local community. While we can see that Enjoy Leisure as a business cannot continue to subsidise the creche in the way it has been admirably doing for a decade and beyond, we are deeply saddened by the lack of regard on the part East Lothian Council for the group of users who rely on the creche for their physical and mental wellbeing. 'The only way I can attend fitness classes is by putting my toddler into the creche. I use it twice a week as its all I can afford and attend five classes over those two days. Without the creche I will have to cancel my membership which will be hugely detrimental to my health as well as my mental well-being' 'Having the creche meant I could continue taking my toddler to swimming when my new baby came along.' 'I use the creche for my three year old so I can take my one year old swimming. It allows me to introduce exercise at a young age, gives me one to one time with my baby, and also learning to swim is a valuable life skill that she will otherwise miss out on.' 'I am a single mum, I lost 6 1/2 stone with the help of the creche and gym. My mother just died and I have no family close by so its the only time I can go. It help with my moods so much and sadly if there was no more creche I will no longer be able to go to the centre.' 'I took out gym membership on advice from my doctor to aid physical ailments related to post-partum recovery. I can only attend the appropriate classes with the help of the creche. Regular excercise is by far the best way for me to manage my ongoing health problems, the alternatives being long term physiotherapy or surgery on the NHS.' The creche facilities offer widespread benefits to the local community, from the physical and mental well-being of new mums, which impacts directly on children in the community, to the ability of parents and carers to immerse their children in exercise and a healthy lifestyle from a young age. A great many mums who chose exercise over medication to manage post-natal depression now see their options significantly reduced, as do those trying to follow a healthy, balanced post-birth weight loss programme. For many more mums a supervised exercise programme is key to resolving post-partum recovery issues, such as diastasis of the abdominal muscles, weakened pelvic floors, sciatic nerve damage, and back pain caused by weakened core muscles. We urge East Lothian to support Enjoy Leisure, the primary provider for leisure facilities in the area, to take their responsibility to the families and young people in this community into consideration before depriving them of this essential service.

We lost our loved ones, our neighbours and our homes in the Grenfell Tower fire. One of the things that makes the heartbreak so difficult is knowing that some of us raised concerns about safety before the fire but we were ignored. And today, over a year and a half since the tragedy, people living in social housing are still so often ignored and mistreated when they raise issues. With your help we want to change this. We are calling for the Government to create a new housing regulator that works for tenants. Please sign this petition to support us. The current housing regulator, is focused is on keeping housing associations in profit. It’s not enough. We need a new independent regulator that puts people before profit. After the banking crisis the Government set up the Financial Conduct Authority to look after consumers interests and after the food crisis it set up the Food Standards Agency to protect customers. It’s time for the same approach for housing. This summer the Government will publish its plans for the future of social housing in a White Paper, so we have just a few months to send a clear message: People living in social housing deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. They need a regulator that will fight for them, not just for their landlords. Please help us, sign this petition and let’s send a message that Grenfell has not been forgotten and make sure that the loss of 72 lives leads to real change for people across the country.

Aberdeen City Council are seeking to fill the hole created by their mis-spending by not only hiking up tax, but also slashing public spending from almost anything worthwhile in the city. Everything from Lollipop Men & Women, to Libraries, Road repairs, Sports Facilitates and even charities like Aberdeen Performing Arts and SHMU face the chop. All so that public money can be spent to prop up private spending on money-pits like Marischal Square. This budget should not be passed without a transparent open book investigation into public spending, to find out why Aberdeen's finances are in such a desperate state, and hold those responsible to account.

Children are being forced to sit alone for days on end in schools, away from their friends and lessons. Isolation booths are becoming a 'dumping ground' for children, in particular those with special educational needs. They should not be used to punish children for minor infractions such as forgetting a pen or other equipment and incorrect uniform.Children's mental health issues are rising dramatically, this form of unforgiving punishment will increase the number of children suffering with poor mental health. The government needs to stop schools using isolation booths until they’ve properly reviewed and improved existing guidelines - including measures to stop schools overusing them and ensuring an upper limit for the amount of time a child could be kept in isolation.

To forward the aim of making Nottingham a cleaner, more pleasant, more sustainable and happier city

I never thought as a parent to a 3 year old, that I would ever have to sit down and talk to my son about suicide and self harm because of video content he has seen, that has been allowed on YouTube kids! I only let my son watch educational videos on kids YouTube, a site that is meant to protect our children and have more in place to stop inappropriate content! I quickly discovered that some videos that came through was teaching my son to hurt himself, teaching him about suicide and to hurt others! I feel sick that I am not the only parent whose child has been subject to these videos, they also come in advertisements and target children on social media. No parent should ever feel that they can’t protect their children, that they feel their child is in danger within their own house! No one is being held responsible and nothing is being done to stop this and protect our children. More needs to be done, it may violate social media community guidelines

St Neots is the largest town in Cambridgeshire with local area expansion plans to double in size over the next decade. There are a vast array of professionals already commuting to Cambridge but mainly along congested and polluted roads and many more would like to trade their London train commute for Cambridge. St Neots is a great hub and should not be forgotten in one of the greatest infrastructure investments we will have seen in a century.

Like tens of thousands of others, my family lives within a few miles of Barton Stacey. Our children go to local schools, and we rely on visitors to the area for our livelihoods. Of course, everyone thinks they live somewhere special. But for those of who have not yet walked in the countryside or visited our vibrant towns and cities, North West Hampshire has a wonderful charm. The area combines the rural, unspoilt character of river valley meadows with ancient woodland that provides a rich habitat for a range of animals, plants and trees. The Barton Stacey Incinerator might create 50 new full-time jobs but the impact on our countryside and the cloying effect on the infrastructure our families rely on means that it should not be granted planning permission. The background A application to build a huge plant in Barton Stacey that burns waste and converts some of it to energy has been made. The plant would need to be approved by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. If approved construction could could commence in 2022 and would run until 2025. The plant would be set to be one of the largest incinerators in the country, processing up to 500,000 tonnes of waste - equivalent to the weight of 75,000 elephants - per year. The facility will operate 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Only about 5% of this waste would come from local houses and businesses in the Test Valley. The rest would be driven to the plant in at least 9,600 lorries a year. If the largest lorries are used a lorry will enter or exit the site 52 times a day; if smaller lorries are used the number of arrivals and departures could be double that - at least once every ten minutes. This will be put strain on the road infrastructure across the main arterial routes such as the A303, the A34 and the M3, and will bung up local roads. As well as the impact on the road infrastructure we all rely on, the plant would have an unacceptable visual and environmental impact. Visual impact - The proposed building is 55 meters high and about 275 meters long. The stack will be about 100 metres high; about as tall as Big Ben. The main body of the plant or the chimneys will be visible from parts of Winchester, and up to 15 kilometres away. If you followed some routes it would take four hours to walk from the site to a point where the chimneys would not be visible. Environmental impact - The River Dever is only 800 metres away and the River Test is less than a mile from the plant. There are three nationally designated sites exist within two kilometres of the site: the River Test Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), one of the most species rich lowland rivers in England, the Easton Aston Common SSSI and the Bransbury Common SSSI. Light pollution will increase, and measures to ensure that any pollution from the site are unclear. (Wheelabrator Technologies Inc., the would be operator, agreed to pay $7.5 million in the US to settle a 2011 lawsuit alleging that it broke environmental law by improperly disposing of contaminated sludge and waste water.) The corrosive impact of the proposed Barton Stacey Incinerator far outweigh any benefits. When we do build in rural areas, let's make sure that Slimbyism (building Something Logical in My Backyard) wins out - the Incinerator proposals are neither logical or sensible. Greg Clark should not provide the ‘Development Consent Order' that would allow the plant to go ahead.

This building has been part of the fabric of life in Harleston, South Norfolk for over 30 years. It currently stands vacant and despite now being registered as an Asset of Community Value it still faces demolition ‘within a few weeks’ under existing permissions as there are plans to turn it into retirement flats. At Hope Church we believe it could still be a really amazing asset for the community - with a little TLC! We’d love to bring it alive again and turn it into a fantastic community hub where we can provide services such as Foodbank and Community Works as well as holding our Sunday meetings and hiring it out for local clubs - in short, to see it repurposed as an amazing space for everyone in Harleston to enjoy. If you agree please add your support!