We the undersigned wish to express our profound disquiet at the roll-out of digital Universal Credit (UC). The Government’s plans will continue to replace all means-tested social security benefits and tax credits for those of working age, across Greater Manchester and beyond. We believe that we should not stand for such wilful ignorance of the impacts of the new system. We urge individuals, groups, organisations, MPs, councillors, landlords and housing associations to stand in solidarity against the Universal Credit roll-out. Signed and shared by: Greater Manchester Law Centre, GM Poverty Action, Big Issue North, Salford Mayor Paul Dennett, Salford Council Welfare Rights and Debt Advice Team, Salford Star, People's Plan GM, Coffee 4 Craig, St Mungo's Unite, Kill the Housing Bill, Cllr Gary Bridges, Cllr Bev Craig, Cllr Basat Sheik, Cllr Richard Leese, Council Labour Group, Manchester Shield, Withington Lib Dems. As this catastrophe unfolds the shortcomings and blind spots of UC have increasingly become clear. The following are the six issues, faced by individuals and families, which concern us most: 1. People are experiencing waits of six to twelve weeks (sometimes longer) for their first payment of Universal Credit. Consequently, people are spiraling into debt and rent arrears which they may find it impossible to recover from. 2. Universal Credit claims can only be processed online through a system called verify which cannot be completed without requisite ID or computer access. Some of the most vulnerable people, such as those who are disabled, precariously housed, homeless or non-UK citizens, find it extremely difficult to claim. This both lengthens the waiting period for first payments and makes it difficult for individuals to maintain their claims, putting them at risk of sanctions. 3. Sanctions are being applied erratically and arbitrarily in relation to UC. There is mounting evidence highlighting unfair use of sanctions, for example individuals have received them for being at work and missing their work focused interview. Full service roll-out will also bring housing benefit into the realm of sanctions, directly increasing the risk of evictions and homelessness. 4. Under UC many will see a reduction in their financial entitlement and will be living off substantially less money. In some cases individuals will be around £100-£300 less well off per month than on previous legacy benefits like Employment and Support Allowance and Severe Disability Premium . Disabled people and those with debilitating heath conditions will be pushed further into poverty as a result. 5. Young People aged 18-25 will be disproportionately affected by UC, . For example, those aged between 18-21 will not be entitled to housing benefit under UC unless in an exempt category. The exemptions will not cover thousands of at risk young people, resulting in mounting debt and homelessness. 6. Evidence suggests that UC is pushing more children and families into poverty. Unjust elements of UC like the two child limit do not support working or non-working families. Direct links to welfare reform, specifically UC are causing professionals to highlight the risk of more children going into care and families becoming homeless. We call on the Government to halt the roll-out while all of the problems are reviewed, to avoid creating unnecessary suffering. Universal Credit, if rolled out in its current form, is a Universal Catastrophe that will place an unsustainable burden on the finances of local authorities, charitable organisations and support services who will ultimately be left to pick up the pieces.

This is important because the cafe has been part of all our childhood and a huge amount of people have happy memories of this cafe. LLP Properties should be held accountable to explain why they are driving out our town’s local businesses and forcing the local people out of jobs which they need to support their own families too. NLC should be doing more to help local businesses NOT helping and standing by and watching them close down. Our home town is slowly dying due to the total greed by this company’s attitude towards its residents who are trying to make a living and serve a community. Start to think about folks livelihoods NOT bank balances for your own self gain. We the people of Motherwell demand that you withdraw the outrageous hike towards our town’s businesses. We demand it NOW!

This will be detrimental to all of the stalls, financially and through loss of footfall. During the work we will be expected to trade on what will basically be a building site. Some of the older traders have been through this before and do not want to repeat it again. With this uncertainty those who want to retire are finding that their business is un sellable. The empty stalls are not being taken up as no one wants to invest in something that might not be worth anything if they make us move. A lot of traders have within the last 2 years invested a lot of money into their stalls. If we have to move there is no guarantee that we will own our stall, but more likely that we will have to rent it from the council, meaning that we all loss what is the biggest asset of the business. The chip, fish, meat, etc stalls have specialist equipment that is not sellable or moveable. It seems that the council officers are throwing away good money / tax payers money on something that has been shown by other markets that doesn’t work. As stall holders we would prefer that the money was used to regenerate the market in its current location, to pay for a reasonable cleaning and maintance schedule (which they apparently do, but we see no signs of it), and a competent market manager.

Sefton council are proposing to take children centres away and merging them with family centres and other services. This will mean that we will no longer have our play sessions or the support for families and children it will all be targeted

These workers rarely get the chance to enjoy a break whilst on duty, often having to leave the shop without their well earned drink/snack if they get a shout while caught up in a queue. Let's show them the respect they deserve and let them 'cut the queue', it'll only add a few minutes to your waiting time and surely it's worth it?

A little girl was ran over tonight in rush hour sadly she’s not the first this has happened to and may not be the last! A friend of ours was also ran over on that road in the same place couple years ago! There is a lot of children around this area as there is 2 primery schools on both sides not far from Liverpool road with also no school crossing (lolly pop). We’d like as many people to help get the concil to do this! For the safety of our community. As a friend has spoke to a PCSO and was told they’d need more fatalities to happen to go ahead which I think is wrong!! I’d like for this to happen ASAP so nothing else awful happens !

Low self-esteem, poor body image, anxiety and depression are increasingly rapidly in young women. Powerful advertisers and retailers would have the women of tomorrow believe that to be beautiful, acceptable and successful you must be the epitome of thin; measuring a size 4 or less. Whilst retail chains aimed at older women are starting to use mannequins that represent normal, wonderful women, retailers aimed at the 14-24 group still have below size 4 mannequins in their window. Their message is that unrealistically thin, unhealthily thin is beautiful. Girls come in a myriad of sizes, they need to be represented and celebrated not ostracised from main stream fashion. Beautiful bodies deserve beautiful clothes whether skinny or curvy. Our daughters deserve more. Statistics show that, "The 2017 version of Miss Average [woman] is 5ft 5in, weighs 11st, wears a dress size 16 and has a shoe size of 6." Retailers have a responsibility to support positive and diverse body image in young women, not to perpetuate the cycle of self-loathing. All girls are beautiful; retailers step up and make a change for positive body image for life.

We all know about the plastic clogging up our oceans and killing our sealife, we have been campaigning for the bottle deposit scheme which is great, but lets push this forward and tackle the big supermarket packaging companies. When i look in my recycling bin and rubbish bin, the waste makes me so sad, from packaged grapes, to bagged carrots/ or shrink wrapped broccoli/ bananas, even mushrooms, what happened to the paper bag and picking your own. I buy organic for health and environmental reasons but it is the worst for packaging which i feel is totally wrong. I went to Sainsbury's the other day and bought 2 pastries from the bakery, the lady said "i should let you know, you can buy 2 off the shelf cheaper, in the plastic boxes, they are exactly the same" i said " but they come in a plastic box and here in a paper bag how can those be cheaper." " I dont know i just thought i should let you know" said the lady. This seemed totally mind boggling to me, the waste we are producing without a thought, and its the cheaper option! so i call out to these supermarkets to combat this issue, if Germany can have a zero waste supermarket across all departments then we can surely begin to use bio-degradable packaging if zero waste is too difficult! let us go back to helping ourselves and popping it in a paper bag. But i don't want to stop here, we bought in the 5p bag scheme which made a massive difference now we should demand that those bags are bio-degradable too. and then i want to make sure it is law that ALL packaging is being bio degradable, from buying your tv, to your clothing there are companies out there and at the moment it is a choice whether we use polystyrene or the eco alternative, but i believe it should now be law. there is no excuse for contaminating our seas and land.

The tubs get stolen and the rubbish gets blown all over the streets. We want N E LINCS council to realise we do want to recycle but the tubs are so impractical

Changing SMI from being a benefit to a loan will mean that yet again many of our vulnerable people will end up further into debt. Also the fact that this has been done relatively on the quiet is another example of this governments rough shod ways of dealing with the most vulnerable people within our society.

Birmingham is home to 1.5 million of us. We're the youngest city in Europe. We're home to a deep cycling heritage and some of the most innovative entrepreneurs of the future. We're a city capable of building amazing infrastructure. We're a city where every life matters. Or so you'd think. The truth is that in 2013 the second city recieved a grant of £24 million to spend on cycling improvementd in the city via the Birmingham Cycle Revolution. A major part of the BCR plan involved the installation of cycling infrastructure on major roads to help make Birmingham a ' safe cycling city'. These works were due to be completed by 2015. None of the meaningful on road infrastructure improvements have even started. The cold horrible truth is that £24m might sound like a big number but is totally inadequate for a city of our size and ambition. To put this into context Mayor Sadiq Kahn is commiting to spend £68 per head of population over four years (£770m). That compares to Birmingham's £3.60. We are not the second city. To 1.5m of us Birmingham is our first and only city. We need our mayor to respect this reality and ensure the delivery of the on road infrastructure we need. On Monday 9th October cyclist Dr Suzanna Bull lost her young and beautiful life in a fatal road traffic collision on the junction of Pershore Rd and Priory Rd. Suzanna was a doctor at Birmigham Childrens Hospital who devoted her life to routinely saving the lives of others. Her life was tragically taken. Her death could have been prevented had Birmingham City Council rolled out effective infrastructure on a par with other major cities. This tragedy happened at a junction recognised by the Birmingham Mail as one of the most dangerous in our region. Had safe segregated cycling been in situ Suzanna would, at the very least, have had an alternative choice of route offering her greater levels of protection. She had no such choice. While cycling remains one of the safest modes of transport (far far safer than travelling by car) the madness of under investment in on road cycling infrastructure needs to end. We all have families and friends we cherish. The call for immediate implementation of increased spend on infrastructure is a call for no more excuses, a call for children to have safe routes to travel to school, a call for loved ones not to live in fear, a call for those who can to begin delivering on very old promises. The Birmingham Cycle Revolution began in 2014 and has so far delivered zero on meaningful on road infrastructure. That's zero, not an inch! £24m and not a single piece of on road infrastructure. We therefore call on Andy Street as mayor for the region to both garauntee an immediate spend of existing monies according to existing plans and to further lobby for a £20 per head spend exlusively on segregated on road infrastructure. Remember this is a petition for everyone, cyclists and none cyclists. A lack of infrastructure means motorists are at a signififcantly higher risk of unintentional collision. Failure to build infrastructure makes us all vulnerable and merits immediate redress. We know our local authority can build amazing infrastructure. They prove it time and again as they plough millions into defending the car all we ask is that they now divert some of their attention and stop killing cyclists.

To ensure that the elderly, vulnerable & those without alternative transport are able to access vital services in Banbury Town Centre.