The new BBC Sounds app is appalling: clunky, badly designed, poorly laid out and missing several important features that made iPlayer a pleasure to use. We didn’t ask for it and we don’t want it! Reinstate BBC iPlayer for radio now!

Barnet has already lost one nursery provider very recently due to funding cuts. Other nurseries are trying everything to stay open. There are a number of schools and nurseries which are struggling to keep their gates open due to the strain of budget cuts. It has forced many schools to make difficult decisions like cutting numbers of teaching assistants , SEND support staff, some have been forced to close early, asking parents for donations and relying on parents to volunteer in the classroom for interventions. Parents, teachers, headteachers and governors have created a grassroots campaign to organise against school and nursery cuts. Find out more by following @BarnetStop on Twitter.

Up until the 1980s buses in England were mainly run by local councils and transport authorities. Then deregulation meant that buses had to be sold off to private companies. In London Transport for London were allowed to move to a franchised system where routes, fares and standards for vehicles were set and private companies bid to run each route. Users need not care who runs their bus as their tickets will work on any bus but can expect a constant experience. However in the rest of England we have a patchwork of private operators. They get to decide what routes to run and their frequency. They set the prices and usually won't accept tickets from other operators. While in London Bus usage has gone up in the rest of the country it has declined. We want West Yorkshire Combined Authority to take control of our buses for the benefit of everyone in West Yorkshire. Creating a proper network of reliable buses built around the needs of the region. More profitable routes can be used to cross fund less profitable but vital routes. Currently bus companies can make profits from busy routes and then get additional public money to run the vital services subsidised by councils. There is now legislation to let this happen, the Bus Services Act 2017 [5] finally allows Combined Authorities to move to a franchised system like London's. Only last week Greater Manchester CA announced their plans to proceed with these new powers [6]. WYCA can't currently do this as we have no elected mayor because of a dispute with central government around how devolution should work in Yorkshire. Once this is sorted out we want WYCA (or any Yorkshire-wide Authority that replaces it) to move to a franchised system as soon as possible. However before then there is an opportunity. FirstBus and Arriva's parent companies are about to put their West Yorkshire operations up for sale. Together they represent more than 80% of bus services in West Yorkshire [4]. We are calling on the West Yorkshire Combined Authority to take action to buy these operations. This will make it much easier to move to franchising in the future but will allow some of the benefits of this to be realised now. There will be a cost to this now but this money should be recouped when the buses are sold to companies biding for the franchises in the future. We are also calling for action to be taken to prevent FirstBus splitting up their operations to make them more attractive to potential buyers. This has happened in Greater Manchester and has resulted in route between areas being cut back and less profitable routes cut. This has had an immediate impact on people who rely on these services but also could make it harder for GM to implement its franchising plans. The current system of multiple operators is fragmented enough. Please share this petition if you care about our bus services; if you are a passenger, a potential passenger or see the congestion-reduction, environmental and social benefits of more people using them. References and further reading: 1 - https://www.westyorks-ca.gov.uk/all-news-and-blogs/west-yorkshire-combined-authority-to-consider-role-in-sale-of-bus-services/ 2 - https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politics/bus-services-could-be-brought-back-under-public-control-combined-authority-claims-1-9866367 3 - https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politics/bus-privatisation-attacked-as-transport-chief-hints-at-changes-for-first-and-arriva-bus-networks-1-9851619 4 - https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/first-bus-yorkshire-sale-could-17027301 5 - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/558349/the-bus-services-bill-an-overview.pdf 6 - https://tfgm.com/future-travel/bus-reform Image credits: Licensed under Creative Commons from Stefan Baguette. For license and image information see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Volvo_B7TL_First_West_Yorkshire.jpg

Please sign this petition, and share everywhere. You can donate to our charity for our future via paypal: https://www.paypal.me/usurpartcharity Our charity started the first gallery and affordable studios in the borough 10 years ago led by diverse local residents and volunteers. We are an arts hub for learning, meeting and organising, and the only secular, artist-led space in the area. We work locally, nationally and internationally, bringing in knowledge, skills and resources to help communities thrive. 100s of artists, writers, performers and musicians have been supported. Tens of 1000s of people have participated in our contemporary arts and cultural activities, and over 200 people have found work / gone on to study thanks to our award winning learning and mentoring programmes. Unique to Harrow, we support LGBTQ+ people in shared creativity and introduced Arts Award to the borough, training 12 Arts Award Advisers. We are applying for funds to find another space and need your help. You can donate to our charity for our future via paypal: https://www.paypal.me/usurpartcharity #isupportUSURP www.usurp.org.uk Charity no: 1183720

The glossy TV ads give no indication of the harm that cars do every day. Only electric cars are tolerable.

INEOS is one of the world's biggest producers of plastic, in pellet or powder form. The pellets are about the size of a lentil and used as a raw material by plastic manufacturers who 'melt' them down to form the plastic goods we use. During pellet manufacture at source, international transportation by vehicle or ship to global plastic manufacturing factories, devastating pellet spills occur. At all handling points on this journey, pellets are lost in transit. They are lost at sea from ships or at ports or factories using and moving the pellets to make their products. They find their way into our seas and oceans directly or escape from land via drains, watercourses and rivers. The pellets are tiny and they float, looking tempting to all fish, birds, marine wildlife as potential food. Once eaten, the pellets remain in the stomach so that the creature falsely thinks it has fed. If enough are ingested, the digestive tract is blocked causing a slow and painful death. We have all seen the horrific images of wildlife suffering indescribable pain on BBC's 'Blue Planet.' In June 2013, The Association of Plastics Manufacturers, noting that they 'take care,' declared (in their "Zero Pellet Loss" document) that "we should have zero tolerance for the loss of pellets anywhere anytime." The Scottish environmental charity 'Fidra' estimates that 53 billion plastic pellets are lost each year. To put this into scale, a 24-tonne ocean-going bulk ship can carry 1.5 billion tonnes of pellets. We can no longer rely on 'beach cleans'by concerned, pro-active volunteers, myself included, to remove the pellets that wash up polluting beaches around the world. It is a totally unsustainable method of tackling this chronic and infinitely persistent global plastic pollution issue.. We must tackle this at source, INEOS. We demand an intelligent, decisive and effective immediate redesign of this pellet element within the manufacturing process of plastic. This is the single origin of all plastic products. It is the base source of all that is plastic pollution in our world. All the further plastic product pollution issues that reach beyond this fundamental and primary point in the supply chain, stems from the manufacture of pre-production plastic pellets. You say that 'customer is king' INEOS however, demand for plastic goods is not coming from society, it comes from inefficient corporations who remain unmoved and in denial, not bold or wise enough to take a stance to seek alternatives to save our planet from the utter devastating future it faces. Protection of their precious easy production profit comes first. As a global primary raw plastic producer and world leading chemical company , INEOS must take the lead. The future of world plastic recycling, production and pollution starts and rests here. Remove raw unrecyclable plastic at source now, stop producing it, force manufacturers to find immediate recyclable plastic alternatives for their products. Initiate and instigate, be courageous, use only recycled plastic in your supply chain, provide only plastic that can be universally and continuously recycled by every county, state, province, city, country in the world. Do not supply any types of plastic that cannot be recycled now. Demand international support now from governments, law and policy makers to support this stance globally. If it is unrecyclable, it should not be made. Redesign and rethink the pellet system for manufacture and stop this insidious, tiny uncontrollable pollutant seeping into our world and destroying the planet.

Fracking pollutes the water, destroys our countryside, and can cause earthquakes big enough to damage homes. The emissions from dirty energy pollute the air and cause climate change, endangering our precious environment. Country after country has banned fracking, but our government still supports the fracking industry. Sign the petition now, and call on the government to ban fracking to protect our communities and the environment from this dangerous form of energy extraction.

I have seen at first hand the horrors this crime involves, my own cat being murdered by 3 vicious and uncontrolled grey hounds. The current law is wholly inadequate and does not take into account the serious psychological trauma caused to pet owners and others who witness or experience it, and needs to be much tougher to reduce the incidence in the future.

Single use plastic cannot be recycled or responsibly repurposed. Responsible packaging is a social and environmental good we all wish for.

Everyone should be able to afford healthcare. As teenagers, we are worried about the future of NHS. Budget cuts on health should never leave the vulnerable in debt to pay for the their health.

Physically harming children in any way has no place in 21st century Britain. The Scottish Government are banning violence against children in any forms, but in England it’s still legal to harm a child so long as you don’t leave a trace. Experts have made crystal clear how dangerous and damaging any kind of violent, abusive treatment of children is to their mental health and development. There’s never an excuse, and it’s time the law made that clear. If you think children in England deserve the same protections as children in Scotland, will you add your name to the petition today?

*Breaking News* The cat is finally out of the bag re. UK medicine shortages after the government eventually took action today to prevent the plans of many drugs wholesalers to export stocks of vital drugs intended for the NHS to more lucrative markets instead as a direct consequence of Brexit. I suffer a very rare condition called Erythromelalgia, sometimes known as 'Burning Man Syndrome' because it causes horrific burn-like sensations and sores all over the body. This condition is famously refractory to virtually all other pain treatments. Fortunately since I started taking methadone I have been able to live a partially normal life; the same is true for many other people suffering rare and excruciatingly painful conditions that don't respond to anything other than the very strongest pain drugs. However, for many months now my local pharmacy has been unable to fulfil prescriptions for methadone from the manufacturer Ethypharm, who have claimed 'packaging difficulties' were responsible when all along they were planning to export these drugs intended for the NHS. Today, the UK government was finally forced to take action by restricting the export of 24 medicines, mostly contraceptives or HRT. However, no mention has been the almost complete unavailability of methadone and other opioids to some of the most vulnerable patients in this country. Methadone isn't just taken by addicts, it is an important drug used for palliative care of the terminally ill in hospices as well as by people like myself who have no other option available to them. Worse still, interruptions in supply can send already very sick patients into devastating opioid withdrawal, something that has just happened to me after the shortage forced to resort to a liquid form I simply couldn't absorb. My fear is that the government may fail to include opioids on this list, preferring to act with regard to medicines that affect large numbers of the general public (i.e. people not actually diagnosed with serious, life-altering illness) ahead of minority groups including the most vulnerable of all --the terminally-ill or those with acute long-term pain -- for the sake of their own political expediency. I fear our voice may drowned out by the clamour erupting over medicine shortages, so help it be heard by signing this petition. Thank you, Elizabeth Moriarty