Mears helps the elderly to remain in their own homes. Elderly neighbours and relatives have found this service vital when they did not know who else to turn to. The cost is reasonable and the workmen are very good and caring.

14 members of University Hospital of Wales Staff are being taken to court for parking at their own workplace. This comes more than 4 years since since the Assembly Government scrapped hospital car parking charges in Wales! 600 more staff will also be targeted to pay fines which start at £30 a ticket but then rise to hundreds of pounds per ticket. Staff are being asked to pay thousands of pounds of costs and charges to Indigo (Vinci) which has a contract with Cardiff and Vale Healthboard to manage parking at their University Hospital Site. However the available number of spaces for staff to park are wholly inadequate and management have been aware of this problem over a number of years. Despite some park and ride options many staff members such as new mums and parents of young children have no choice whether to drive to work or not. Other staff members come to work 90 minutes before they start work to queue for a precious parking space. This situation has been ignored by management for too long and now Indgio are aggressively pursuing staff members for thousands of pounds of historical fines. Some of these staff members are on low wages but make up the frontline staff at UHW.

Kent County Council has a statutory requirement to take into account the needs of ALL road users when setting local speed limits. In 2014, Kent recorded an 11% increase in the number of people killed or seriously injured on its roads. At 20mph EVERYBODY benefits, including the most vulnerable members of our community. Child pedestrian accidents decrease by up to 70%. Slower speeds are elderly, disability and dementia friendly, reducing casualties by up to 20%. Walking and cycling become safer and more attractive modes of transport. Toxic diesel fumes are reduced to the equivalent of taking half of all petrol cars off the road. Traffic flow improves and congestion is eased. Journey times are increased by only a few seconds. Area-wide, blanket speed limits cost less to implement and are more effective than separate zones. On August 24th 2015 Faversham Town Council pledged their support for a 20mph scheme throughout Faversham Town Over 15m people are now living in 20mph boroughs. We deserve the same! Thank you for your support www.faversham.20splentyforus.org.uk Twitter: @20sPlentyFav Facebook: 20sPlentyFaversham

We should celebrate our heroes especially one who has changed the face of music, art, fashion and attitude and has been such a positive influence to so many people across the planet. He has also been one of the UK's greatest exports

We are about to face one of the biggest decisions that we will come across in the next 18 months and we have no idea as to the reason why we should support or not the exit from the EU. As far as immigration is concerned we are told that we cannot limit welfare payments in the country for immigrants, but if we work abroad what are we entitled to in the other country. I am old enough to have been able to vote to join the EEC, but we have not had a say when it comes to the EU. If the commission was elected then I may have more faith on Europe, currently appointments, "jobs for the boys".

At the moment the justice system is skewed in favour of the wealthiest citizens. The poorest are effectively priced out of it. Legal aid is designed to aid those on low income but it is widely abused by the legal profession for its own ends. The ends of justice are not served by a system that leaves the granting of legal aid in the hands of the legal profession. The Scottish government trumpets justice but it needs to demonstrate that commitment by ensuring that everyone has equal access to the services of solicitors and the Courts of law. The present system is flawed, costly, and overdue for reform and reconstruction.

Recent high profile scientific evidence shows that eating a plant-based diet will help prevent worsening climate change. Animal agriculture overuses the world’s precious resources and is a significant contributor to greenhouse gases; 40-50% of farmed grain is fed to animals for the meat and dairy industry. As advocates of an end to unnecessary cruelty to animals, vegans are leading the trend towards a compassionate, ethical and healthy diet and we ask that the BBC stop excluding us from food programming. A fresh new cooking show will inform and help address the problems of stereotyping and cultural reference that prevent so many people from changing to a plant based diet. Veganism is a legally protected belief under Article 9 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights. Yet, it is underrepresented and often misunderstood; generally vegans eat a much wider variety of food than meat eaters. Where is the modern celebrity chef who could introduce innovative culinary television programming that represents vegans and a better nutritional future for everyone? Look to the popularity of people like Lee Watson, author of Peace and Parsnips and five-year vegan, and Áine Carlin, Peasoup blogger and author of The New Vegan. It is time for a distinct and vibrant ethical cooking show to take centre stage, push meat to the side and bring modern and compassionate attitudes in to the heart of the BBC. References 1. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/no-meat-no-dairy-no-problem-is-2014-the-year-vegans-become-mainstream-9032064.html [Accessed 26 December 2015] 2. https://www.vegsoc.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=753 3.8 million mainly vegetarians in UK and, “according to the European Vegetarian Union, Britain has the third highest rate of vegetarianism in the European Union” http://www.libertygb.org.uk/v1/index.php/home/root/news-libertygb/6123-uk-vegetarians [Accessed 26 December 2015] 3. BBC RADIO 4 - Henry Dimbleby in conversation with Professor Tim Lang (Professor of Food Policy, City University London) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06s9d26#play [Accessed 26 December 2015] 4. https://www.vegansociety.com/about-us/key-facts Other useful information http://www.veganuary.com http://london.vegfest.co.uk/pr-russell-brand 5.Peasoup Blog http://www.peasoupeats.com 6.Deliciously Ella - http://www.deliciouslyella.com https://twitter.com/DeliciouslyElla One World, Many Lives https://www.vegansociety.com

No parent should have to hold their children and comfort them as they die, or be told that their child has been harmed by someone who is supposed to love them. But that’s exactly what I had to experience 10 years ago when my sons Jack and Paul were killed by their father after a family court judge granted him unsupervised contact with them, despite my warnings. For the past nine years, I’ve been campaigning with Women’s Aid to ensure children are at the heart of every decision made in the family courts and their voices, wishes and feelings are heard. I’ve been to Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament to help get key changes through in the Domestic Abuse Act.  In 2017, we saw new guidance published for judges making decisions about child contact in cases of domestic abuse. And in 2020, the Government committed to make the family courts safer for adult and child survivors. But years later, we’re still waiting for true reform to keep children safe now and for generations to come.  That’s why I’m calling on the new Labour Government and family courts to ensure, once and for all, that decisions made about parental contact do not allow known abusers to have unsafe contact with children that puts their lives at risk.

Safeguard our NHS The Government needs to listen to the public and frontline healthcare professionals to safeguard our NHS for the future.

EU Politicians have introduced a new law obliging the United Kingdom, Ireland and Italy to organise the killing of hundreds of thousands of grey squirrels, every year from 2016, using methods that include poisoning, bludgeoning to death or trapping and shooting. In the UK the Forestry Commission has drawn up new plans obliging UK landowners to carry out this cull if they wish to receive improvement grants; they would be paid £100 per hectare per year for five years using taxpayers’ money. In March 2014, Oliver Heald, the Solicitor General, told MPs that eradicating the grey squirrel was "no longer considered feasible". Representatives of animal welfare organisations, like Mimi Bekhechi (director of PETA UK) and Andrew Tyler (director of Animal Aid), have stated many times that killing grey squirrels is an inhumane, ecologically and socially damaging practice, and is an absolutely pointless cruelty waged against beautiful animals. Andrew Tyler said, “The grey squirrel is hated by members of certain groups, most notably those with shooting or forestry interests and some 'conservationists' who believe that the mass killing of greys is justifiable in their quest to boost the numbers of red squirrels”. "People have been responsible for wiping out the red squirrel, it's an excuse to blame the grey squirrel. The damage they do is exaggerated. Attempts to purge the landscape of them in the past have failed and this will fail too." Rob Atkinson, the head of wildlife science at the RSPCA, said: "It's ethically dubious killing one species for the sake of another. Up until the 1970s you could get a licence to kill red squirrels, so they were the baddies then, now it's grey squirrels. Apart from all that it doesn't work. There's absolutely no point in doing it." Killing squirrels is to be conducted even in the time of year when females nurse their dependent kittens. Killing thousands of nursing females will cause tens of thousands of baby squirrels to die of starvation. Starving animals is a torture in breach of animal welfare standards set by the World Organisation for Animal Health. Scientific research has dispelled many myths about grey squirrels, yet these are still used to ‘justify’ the killing of grey squirrels. The red squirrel population in the UK has been declining for centuries now for a variety of reasons. Their habitat is coniferous woodland, their main diet, seeds from pine cones; these forests now exist mainly in Scotland, England has more deciduous woodland, which is best suited to grey squirrels, This can clearly be seen in the Forestry Commission's 1998 research data on grey and red squirrel numbers across the UK. A huge factor in the decline of red squirrels is the destruction of millions of acres of woodland by humans for agriculture, housing and industrial purposes. As a species, reds are far less adaptable than the grey, and have suffered badly when their habitat has been destroyed by us. Red squirrels will not thrive unless we give them the correct habitat, which will, in turn, limit the greys. These innocent creatures (the grey squirrel) were brought from their native country for the entertainment of wealthy landowners in the 1870s. They have not killed the red squirrels. Up to the late 1970s I remember that red squirrels were being slaughtered by landowners who blamed them for bark stripping and the loss of songbird eggs amongst other things, now it is fashionable to protect them, so blame has been transferred to the grey squirrel. The two species do not share the same habitat or food in most cases, there is no decent or logical justification for this cull. As with badgers there is no logic in the squirrel cull, which will cause untold suffering to a much loved animal and the main beneficiaries are people in the commercial business of killing wild animals.

Junior doctors of the United Kingdom have reluctantly, and almost unanimously, voted in favour of the first "all-out" strike in the history of the NHS. This is in response to the proposed imposition of a contract which is widely acknowledged in medical circles to be unsafe for patients and doctors alike, without mentioning the likelihood of a significant cut in pay for medical staff, while asking them to work longer hours. This is not a decision that has been made lightly, and at all points the BMA has remained open to the option of full, fair contract negotiations - an option which Secretary of State Jeremy Hunt and the current government have repeatedly declined to take. Throughout this process, junior doctors have been the target of a smear campaign headed by national media institutions, none so fervently as The Sun newspaper. This systematic abuse reached a new low today (10/01/2015) in an article entitled "Moet medics: High life of docs’ leaders who are heading up NHS strike", which passes beyond slander into the realms of active discrimination. To take photos of doctors on holiday from personal social media accounts and print them in a national newspaper is invasion of privacy enough, without pretending that this is evidence of a "jet-set lifestyle" being enjoyed by these medical professionals. As part of every doctor's contract, they are entitled to periods of annual leave, and whether they choose to travel abroad or not during this time is utterly irrelevant to their professional practice. Similarly, stating that these doctors are "champagne-swilling socialists" on the basis that one individual supported a ratified candidate in their successful campaign for the position of head of the Labour party is not only a sweeping generalisation completely immaterial to the debate at hand, but is an attempt to debase an entire profession by implying that, for doctors, the right to political expression is not a basic human right. The same is true of publishing the values of property owned by various committee members - the insinuation being that home-ownership in major UK cities is somehow a crime for the medical staff who work in these areas, and being able to afford accommodation is evidence of the "high life". Articles 8, 9 and 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998 enshrine the right of every UK citizen to " the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence", "freedom of thought" and "freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas". For an article in a mainstream newspaper to imply that a person's profession and position on committees somehow renders these guarantees forfeit is not only a pathetic excuse for "investigative journalism", but also risks setting a dangerous precedent whereby the basic rights of essential, hard-working medical professionals are eroded in the public conscience. Such thinly-veiled attacks on dedicated doctors will serve only to reduce already unprecedented low levels of morale, and further drive the ongoing exodus from the medical profession in the United Kingdom. As such, we the undersigned petition Tony Gallagher and The Sun to limit the damage done to these individuals and the medical profession as a whole by submitting a full, unreserved apology to the BMA junior doctors' committee in a prominent position on the front page of an edition of their newspaper.

We call upon all Staffordshire landowners to support the vaccination of badgers to address concerns about Tuberculosis (TB), culling is not the answer. There have been ongoing governmental trials to kill badgers in Somerset, Gloucestershire and Dorset and was extended to six other Counties in 2016, a further 11 cull zones in 2017 and further expansion this year and expected to include Staffordshire. Killing badgers as a method to prevent bovine tuberculosis (TB) as well as being inhumane and barbaric is scientifically proven to be ineffective. The government’s own figures, which were quietly released on the last day before Christmas, show TB in cattle to be rising in and around cull zones. In 2017 19,274 badgers were killed with 20 – 40,000 more expected by the end of 2018. The Welsh Government's approach has been far more successful by focusing on improved testing and movement controls in cattle. New incidents of bovine TB in cattle are now down by 28% in Wales with a 45% cut in the number of cattle being slaughtered. This now leaves 94% of the welsh herd TB free, without killing any badgers. Please say no to the badger cull and show the UK Government that we will not let badgers be murdered. Vaccination and cattle control must be implemented.