The young people of eastern Bath are desperately short of age-appropriate play facilities to encourage active, safe and fun play and to act as a social hub. The proposed skatepark in Alice Park would meet this need and improve the health and wider wellbeing of a large number of Bath's young people.

It's around 8am on a dusky day in July 2016, and I'm standing on the far platform of Tain railway station, gazing out into the misty depths of the Dornoch Firth. The previous night I had come up on the late train - the 21:06 - from Inverness, though there's also a midnight service north. That left from Platform 7, which, intriguingly enough I had to walk across a car park to reach. Very few rail journeys start with a walk through a car park. But, increasingly often, many, many journeys from Wick and Thurso to Inverness involve a walk across a car park. This walk culminates with getting into a car and, well, driving down the A9. And why is this? There is a perfectly good rail line linking Thurso and Wick with Inverness, via the commuter towns of Dingwall, Tain and Invergordon, with four trains up it and down it each day (only one on Sundays). Many people marvel at the beauty of the line - it traverses all kind of landscape; the Beauly Firth, the Dornoch Firth, the Cromarty Firth, the mountains of Sutherland, Loch Fleet, incredible seascapes, marshy vistas, and vast tracts of peat bogland (the Flow Country). The line also connects with the NorthLink ferries north from Scrabster, near Thurso, to Orkney, and many people use these each year. In fact, I do. It's why I was at Tain in the first place. At Dounreay, on the north coast near Thurso, there used to be a nuclear power station. As this is decommissioned, things are transported out to Sellafield by rail. There's also timber extraction going on near Kinbrace en route - and the trees could be transported by rail. So why are people not using the line as much? Unsurprisingly, it's to do with the service. Things have become very unreliable. Delays and cancellations occur very frequently. Stops are often omitted at some of the line's busiest stations - including Thurso and the recently-reopened Beauly and Conon Bridge - to make up the time lost. The chronic problems behind these occurrences are caused by a combination of missing infrastructure and absent crew members. Out of these two, the infrastructure is the biggest problem with the line. But why is this? Well, the line is single track for its whole length, aside for some 'passing loops'. This is where there are two lines, or 'double track', but only for a short distance (think road 'passing places'); and there are loops at Muir of Ord, Dingwall, Invergordon, Tain, Ardgay, Lairg, Rogart, Brora, Helmsdale, and Forsinard. Otherwise, the train's can't pass each other. Because of this, delays can build up, causing a knock-on effect that leads to cancellations and skip-stopping. The stretch of railway between Inverness and Dingwall has only one passing place, at Muir. But this line is shared with the service to Kyle of Lochalsh (for Skye) and sees 13/14 trains per day in each direction (7 on Sundays). That's nearly 30 trains a day; and the constraints provided by the lack of track on the Far North Line, in particular between Inverness and Muir, mean that many, many of these are delayed, or cancelled. And so we return to Tain. My train northwards arrives a couple of minutes late. Not much of a delay, though we manage to pick up more and more delays on route, so that we end up around 15/20 minutes behind time on reaching Thurso. This makes commuting between the towns and villages on the southern section of the line and Inverness very difficult. And it also severely affects the northern end, too; because Thurso serves the ferry services at Scrabster and Gills Bay to Orkney. People need to be able to make their connections; being shunted out into a taxi at Wick doesn't help with things. But there is a solution. Until 1966, there were six miles of double track between Clachnaharry - to the west of Inverness - and Clunes, near Kirkhill. Since this was ripped away, this bottleneck has become worse, and worse, and worse. This is the solution; the Lentran Long Loop, as it's become known to the Friends of the Far North Line (or FoFNL). But why the name? Well firstly, it would go through the Lentran are. And secondIy: in railway terms, a 'dynamic loop' is a passing loop that's long enough to allow two trains to pass without stopping. For example, there's a couple on the main line south of Inverness, and there's one on the line from Glasgow to Barrhead and Kilmarnock. Having the Lentran Long Loop would improve services massively. An hourly service from Inverness to the towns of Easter Ross - Beauly, Muir of Ord, Conon Bridge, Dingwall, Alness, Invergordon and Tain - would become possible. Scenic tourist trains could run down the line, boosting the local economy in a ways similar to the North Coast 500 road route. The line could become a major freight corridor. But, more importantly than all of those: the trains could run on time. The ball is in your court.

Closing existing rail lines and converting them to BRT is a bad idea for five key reasons: • environmental impact • passenger comfort and perception • loss of network benefits • reliability • cost It is widely acknowledged that given a choice, people see rail / light rail as a superior mode to bus, and would be more encouraged to switch to rail should the service be enhanced. Removing the line from the rail system means that people would see it as ‘just another bus route’, rather than as a feeder to the rest of the rail network. Bus usage has been on a steady downward trend outside London since 1986 whilst rail usage is at record high levels. On the environmental impact, a simple appreciation of physics confirms that the rolling resistance of a rubber-tyred vehicle on a concrete track is significantly higher than steel wheels on steel rail. Furthermore the imposition of BRT would imply dismantling of the existing Overhead Line Equipment (OHLE) which allows trains / light rail to operate with zero emissions at the point of use. On the contrary, it is assumed that buses operating under BRT would have to be self-powered, each having to carry around their own power unit, with consequent penalty for weight and hence fuel consumption. If they were to be diesel-powered, this raises serious questions about the impact on local air quality. The consequences of pouring thousands of tonnes of concrete to create the guideways in itself is a CO2-intensive activity, additionally noting that doing so through Bricket Wood would be within a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). On reliability and cost, a ‘pioneering’ scheme on the old Cambridge to St Ives railway line suffered severe delays, cost overruns and quality failings – which are still being addressed. To make the service more attractive and boost ridership, ABFLY have long been calling for an increase in the service frequency on the single track line, which provides a train every 45mins in each direction. They believe this can be achieved by installing a ‘passing loop’ and bringing in a second train to operate a higher frequency shuttle. The costs of building a passing loop are thought to be somewhere between £4m and £7m based on historical estimates. Whilst the Hertfordshire Rail Strategy, published last July, dismisses the passing loop as, “unlikely to be considered by funders as a priority, as it would require provision of two train sets and train crew in place of the current one, making it difficult to achieve a favourable business case”, no such business case has ever been presented for public scrutiny, and in any case it is thought to be severely undermined by a high level of usage going unrecorded because of ticketless travel on the branch. This issue has recently been acknowledged by the Department for Transport’s very own figures. According to the Transport Vision document, the cost of the BRT scheme is quoted at £90m, over ten times the price of a passing loop, but no business case is presented for BRT either.

Because there can be no right in a world where hospitals are filled with civilian casualties from towns turned into warzones, where parents dig their murdered children from the rubble of their homes, where neighbourhoods resemble scenes from history books and those who should be protecting them are actively contributing to the wholesale destruction of life.

The existing statutory footpath transgresses all the current standards and the surface of the relevant portion of National Cycle Route 43 passing through the yard is unsatisfactory. The reinstated canal towpath will also provide safe uninterrupted passage during the restoration of the buried lock and canal.

We believe that hospital closures and mergers have a negative impact on services provided and patient care. This proposed merger will result in a reduction of staff, available appointments and operation availability. There will be no maternity provision on the Wirral at all. One hospital instead of three will result in fewer beds being available. We already know the problems experienced in these hospitals at times of high demand, and this will be further worsened. We believe that merging hospitals will reduce the number of staff required, impacting on areas already suffering from economic deprivation and high levels of unemployment and poverty. Increased risks of fatalities due to the transport problems frequently experienced in travelling on the major road routes from Wirral and Chester to Ellesmere Port. Increased travelling time and distance will make being sick or disabled even more of a financial hardship than it already is. Travel can already be problematic for people with numerous or frequent hospital appointments and this will again negatively impact on patients wellbeing.

Many people use the road, especially the elderly, the potholes make it unsafe

Deer Park Medical Centre is a GP Practice providing an excellent service to a large number of people in West Witney due to close on the 3rd November 2016. It is currently being serviced under contact to Virgin Care. Whilst many of us do not agree with the privatisation of health services, Virgin are undoubtedly providing a good service. Whatever it takes to keep this practice open must be done. You cannot seriously consider allowing it to close. Other GP practices in Witney are already badly overstretched and waiting times for an appointment are often measured in weeks. This is not the case at Deer Park, I am a patient and have never had to wait more than days, also they operate walk in clinics for urgent cases. Please don't use the people of West Witney as political pawns in this dangerous game.

Emergency food bank use is it some of it's highest levels. Trussel Trust remains at record high with over one million three-day emergency supply packages being given to people in 2015/16. This shows more and more people in the UK are going hungry. Currently there are tonnes of produce from supermarkets in the UK being wasted. By major supermarkets following Tesco's example and signing up to schemes that donate this surplus produce to those going hungry it will immensely help the ever-growing problem!

Residents of Brunswick and Regency wards have been reporting disturbing levels of antisocial behavior, noise, criminal damage and violence all with one common theme: alcohol. The Council and Police have a duty of care to safeguard all in our community from the damaging effects of alcohol misuse and antisocial behaviour.

We feel it is frightfully inconvenient to expect users to struggle inside WHSmith merely to use our local Post Office. It will be over crowded and is ill equipped in terms of size. There would be no ticket queuing system. Moving our Post Office to the WHSmith could lead to the eventual closure of the service, meaning Eastbourne could end up with no post office counter services whatsoever - why? It is disgraceful. Our population is continuing to grow!

We the undersigned are parents of young and middle aged adults with mental disabilities who, with other signatories, are concerned and horrified to find that UK law actively makes it difficult for such people to obtain employment. Employment is not only psychologically beneficial for such people but also is likely to reduce the amount of financial support they require from the State. The problem is that it is a criminal offence for an employer to pay such people less than the National Minimum Wage. There is an exception for piece workers but not for ordinary "time workers". We believe there should also be an exception for ordinary "time workers" with mental disabilities. The absence of an exception can make it commercially impossible for an employer to employ someone with mental disabilities. The main opposition to such an exception (coming, we understand, from major charities such as Mencap and Scope) generally rests on the ideological basis that mentally disabled people are "worth" just as much as others. This objection deliberately confuses human worth with financial worth. It fails to take into account the needs of some of those who would have psychological and social benefit from being employees. Clearly an exception to normal NMW rules for the mentally disabled would have to be carefully worded to avoid unintended consequences such as the possibility of abuse by unscrupulous employers. Research suggests that the UK is the only country in the world, other than Romania, to have a national minimum wage without some form of special provision for the benefit of people with mental disabilities. We urge the UK government to bring the UK into line with other countries and to include some form of therapeutic exemption in the forthcoming review of National Minimum Wage law.