Car Parking charges will kill off Dingwall High Street altogether. Please show your support for this cause by signing our petition and sending the letter below to all 4 of our Councillors elected to represent Dingwall. You will find their email addresses below. Thank you. Email template: Dear Councillors elected to represent the Dingwall & Seaforth Ward, I am writing to ask you to reverse Highland Council's decision to introduce car parking charges in the Dingwall south car park. Whilst car parking charges may help other towns across the region, Dingwall does not currently have parking or congestion problems. Therefore, these new charges will be seen as a barrier and are likely to deter locals and visitors from doing their shopping in the town and consequently disadvantage its small businesses. One of the best things about Dingwall is the FREE parking available. The council should be doing more to support local businesses and not hamper them. I urge you to help protect Dingwall and reverse the decision to introduce car parking charges. Finally, please update me on what action you have taken to achieve the above. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Yours Sincerely, Name: Address: Please cut and paste above then send to: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Boris Johnson should be dismissed or be forced to resign after lying about Russia being proven as the source of a nerve agent used in the Skripals’ poisoning. On Tuesday 3rd April, the Porton Down lab said that they hadn’t identified the source. The Foreign Secretary told Germany’s state broadcaster that scientists from the Porton Down laboratory were“categorical” about the Russian origin of the substance used in the alleged nerve attack.

HEALTH & SAFETY was the main reason for the birth of the trade union movement. There is no doubt with the current government attack on trade unions and a possible all out onslaught when we arrive at ‘post Brexit’ Britain, Trade Unions will no doubt find the coming years increasingly difficult. For this reason alone TRADE UNIONS must immediately prioritise H&S now and strengthen links with other unions. Every individual worker has the right to a safe & healthy working environment. Workers are better protected with a strong & robust union that adopt a prime focus on Health & Safety at work.

Bromley has the highest proportion of road casualties that occur on its residential roads of any London borough. Making our residential streets safe for pedestrians, children, the elderly, people who are cycling and people with disabilities needs to be a priority. A 20mph limit for all residential roads in Bromley will help make our streets safer and more liveable as well as improving air quality. As of November 2017 10 London boroughs now have 20mph limits on their residential streets and in their town centres and high streets. (http://www.20splenty.org/20_s_plenty_for_london_nov_17_update).

In a period where the already barely adequate council services are being slashed, council tax and other charges are rising, and the enquiry into the previous Tram fiasco has not yet completed, the City of Edinburgh Council must allow residents to voice their opinions on the proposed £165,000,000 (current estimate) expenditure in extending the Edinburgh Tram line.

The Centre was opened by people who really cared about the support available when life seems so hard. Old fashioned community support and ongoing help for each other can't be provided on the NHS but it can be provided by local people who care enough to volunteer their time and energy to run the service. Our Centre has been described by the people who use it as being a family where there's always someone to listen and offer help. We can't lose this valuable community asset that we the volunteers have put our hearts and souls into, so please show you think this is important too and sign the petition.

Following the Homelessness Reduction Act, which came into force in April 2018, local authorities have a duty to provide interim accommodation for “all people found to be homeless and in priority need” and “In determining who is in priority need, housing authorities will need to be aware that ‘an applicant may be considered vulnerable because of a combination of factors which taken alone may not necessarily lead to a decision that they are vulnerable (e.g. drug and alcohol problems, common mental health problems, a history of sleeping rough, no previous experience of managing a tenancy)” We, the undersigned, call upon the Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk to follow on from the successful night shelter funded by Churches Together and fund a night shelter 7 nights a week as part of the interim accommodation

Not all nurseries or childcare providers in Scotland have trained staff in paediatric first aid on site to deal with immediate life threatening first aid emergencies like choking or asthma attacks. Infants and children, who need simple first aid treatment, before an ambulance arrives, are being put at risk everyday. In England and Wales, all childcare settings should have at least 1 member of staff with a 12 hour Paediatric First Aid qualification. This became law in September 2014. The tragic Millie Thompson case in 2012 brought into sharp focus the fact that paediatric first aid training can mean the difference between the life and death of a child. Since 2016 we have been asking the Scottish Government why this law can't be applied to all Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) Providers in Scotland, to bring us in line with England and Wales. We have discussed the issue with the previous and current Scottish Minister for Childcare and Early Years and had prolonged discussions with the Care Inspectorate (the government body responsible for inspecting childcare providers) but have been unsuccessful in moving this issue forwards. The Scottish government does not seem to think that any childcare staff on duty, when children are present in nurseries, or on visits, needs to hold a Paediatric First Aid qualification. In late 2016 we contacted all 32 Local Authorities in Scotland under FOI legislation to ask how many of their registered childcare providers had staff with Paediatric First Aid qualifications. Their replies were shocking: • 30% of Local Authorities said they did not require ELC Providers to have staff on site with a Paediatric First Aid qualification. • Of those that did require Paediatric First Aid training, this varied widely from 3 - 9 hours. There was no consistency of course length or course content across Local Authorities. Why a 12-hour Paediatric First Aid course? Not everyone realizes that first aid for infants and young children is quite different to that for adults. This course is seen as the ‘standard’ first aid course for childcare across the rest of the UK but not in Scotland. The training includes time to cover infant and child specific issues around CPR, asthma, febrile convulsions, recognition of meningitis and more. None of these are included on a standard Emergency First Aid at Work course. If the law were changed, to create parity between England, Wales and Scotland then this situation would be resolved instantly. The Scottish government is working towards doubling the amount of free childcare hours for parents of young children in Scotland. More children will be put at risk for longer, unless this change is made. Now is the prefect time for Maree Todd, Minister for Childcare and Early Years, to change the law. As other childcare legislative changes are enacted it is the perfect time to change the law to ensure that Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) Providers have Paediatric First Aid trained staff on duty when children are present, or on visits. Previous precedent’s concerning children and first aid People say to me, you will never persuade the powers that be to change their minds. Well there are some similar precedents to this situation regarding first aid training. In 2014 the English government issued new guidance on the use of asthma inhalers and adrenaline auto injector pens (EpiPens) so that schools and nurseries could hold a spare inhaler / auto injector in case a child lost of forget their own. It took till late 2017 for the Scottish government to follow suite and issue similar guidance, making schools and nurseries safer places for our children to be. The issue of Paediatric First Aid training for childcare and early learning providers is similar. The law changed in England back in 2014 so sometimes it does take a while for our government to catch up! Why should we have to wait for another young child to die in a nursery before the government acts? What can you do? • Sign our 38 degrees petition, asking Maree Todd MSP to change the law • Send a Facebook or twitter message to Maree Todd MSP • Write to Marie Todd MSP

As an answer to austerity, the simplest solution for councils to save money is to just give land away to reduce maintenance costs. Urban greenspace is very important to the community, it is owned by the public (not councils) and may never be returned.

Our mental health services have been so dangerously underfunded, there aren't enough Psychiatrists, Psychologists, mental health nurses to support the thousands of children & adults who have a neurological & /or mental health problem, to enable them to function. We need a service that is fit for purpose, especially since January, when a teenage lad with aspergers wasn't deemed to be in crisis & was given an appointment for 3 months time. He sadly couldn't wait that long & walked in front of an early morning train. We need to tell the MP's of Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin & NHS Management that mental health needs a decent percentage of this funding, before we lose anymore of our community!

The Haigh Woodland Park is a local treasure and is enjoyed by people from all over the borough for walking, running and cycling. The approach to the Hall is stunning and with the placement of road markings the aesthetic has been ruined completely. Furthermore, these road markings give the clear impression that cars now have the first priority - which should never, ever be the case in a country park where people are trying to enjoy the outdoors and get away from cars for a few hours. There are some great initiatives at Haigh Woodland Park and they should be commended - but this is a disgrace and judging from public sentiment locals and regular visitors are extremely upset and angered by it.

I retired as a Sussex Police Officer in 2009 after more than 31 years of service. At the time of my retirement, I held the rank of Detective Chief Superintendent, Head of the Sussex CID. Prior to this I was the Divisional Commander for Brighton and Hove. Having retired as a police officer I joined the S.E. Regional Organised Crime Unit, still working in an operational policing function, fully retiring in January of this year. This means that I have a total of almost 40 years policing service. This experience as a police officer and subsequently as a police staff member was wide and varied which I believe enables me to speak with some authority on policing. I am a member of a large group of other retired officers who remain in contact with each other through social media. Although we are retired, without exception, we still care about Sussex Police and the service that it provides to the local communities within the County. We, probably along with large numbers of the public, have become increasingly concerned regarding the ability of Sussex Police to be able to respond to incidents reported by the public. Indeed, this issue has been recently publicised by officers currently serving with the Force. They have a genuine concern that the low numbers of front line police officers available may lead to the safety of the public and the officers themselves being compromised. This concern is not exaggerated and is not scaremongering as some current senior officers would have us all believe but is a genuine fear based on their professional experiences. This fear is hardly surprising. Police officer numbers in Sussex have fallen from 3,200 to a little over 2,500 between 2010 and today. Whilst the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), Katy Bourne, has secured a considerable increase in funding for the new financial year of 2018/2019, through a rise in our Council Tax precept, she and the Chief Constable, Giles York, intend to recruit around 140 additional PCSOs in order to boost Neighbourhood Policing Teams. Whilst this may assist in increasing a uniform visibility, PCSOs do not possess the powers of police officers and therefore cannot deal with the types of incidents that officers can respond to. This is not designed to undermine the work of PCSOs, but this issue should be about increasing the numbers of police officers. Whilst Sussex are recruiting large numbers of PCSOs, our neighbours in Kent are looking to take on an additional 200 police officers. Other forces within the country are also looking to increase police officer numbers similarly through reducing numbers of PCSOs including Lincolnshire. We therefore pose the question as to why Sussex are choosing to recruit extra PCSOs when the Force are struggling to attend incidents reported by you, the public. The time taken for officers to attend incidents reported by the public has increased considerably in recent times. This is despite the fact that officers no longer attend certain crime types that they used to such as household burglary or other incidents determined to no longer require the attendance of a police officer. We, as retired officers, believe that this is not right or appropriate and therefore the public are being let down. Therefore, we argue that the time is now right to challenge the decision making of the PCC and the Chief Constable. We would ask that you, the public, join us in attempting to achieve this change in thinking.