• Local democracy implications of proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
    The EU and US are negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The proposed TTIP could have a detrimental impact on local services, employment, suppliers and democratic decision-making. Supporters say TTIP will provide benefits for consumers and the economy. Opponents say it will weaken EU standards and result in privatisation of public services. NB. This petition has been set up to compliment an existing petition on the Bristol City Council website. The signatures from both petitions are combined on this webpage, and will be sent off together to the Council.
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    Created by Alison Allan Picture
  • Bring Europe's Unaccompanied Refugee Children to the UK Now
    After the recent demolition of half of the Calais Jungle we need you to take immediate action on the International Development Committee’s recommendation to bring 3000 unaccompanied refugee children who are currently residing in refugee camps not only in The Jungle and Grande Synthe, Dunkirk but in the whole of Europe, to the UK - including all minors with family connections in the UK. This is in addition to the current commitment to resettle 20,000 refugees from the region. These children have lost their homes, their education, people who loved them, their friends and their communities. They have seen war and all its cruelties - the last thing we can do is abandon them. This would be the most inhumane form of neglect. Stephen Twigg MP, Chair of the Committee sums up why when he said: "Children are clearly some of the most vulnerable refugees this crisis has created. The Committee heard that close to 80% of Syria's child population already need humanitarian assistance. In December, the UNHCR and International Organisation for Migration estimated that one million refugees and migrants fled to Europe in 2015. Of more than 900,000 people taking the dangerous route across the Mediterranean, one in every two were Syrian. The first refugee casualty of 2016 was a drowned two year old boy pulled from the sea off the Greek coast. Having survived the treacherous journey, there is a grave possibility that unaccompanied children become the victims of people traffickers who force them into prostitution, child labour and the drugs trade. This is an issue of utmost urgency."
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    Created by Jim Innes Picture
  • Mend Edinburgh Road Surfaces
    Please petition the City of Edinburgh Council to repair our roads which are in many places more suited to a third world country. If you have driven anywhere in Edinburgh, you will be well aware of how dangerously potholed the roads are. For cyclists, it is difficult to avoid potholes without risking life and limb - and for motorists, the damage to vehicles must run into £millions, for most of which the CEC will deny any liability. If you Google "Edinburgh potholes", you will see how ludicrous the situation has become with one woman planting flowers with 35 litres of compost needed to fill the hole. The stories abound, yet the CEC has long insisted there were no potholes waiting to be repaired, hiding behind their definition of a pothole and the sheer brazen complacency that allows such incompetence to be left responsible for our road infrastructure. http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/council-no-potholes-claim-is-laughable-1-3344166 Please help to force CEC to address this situation with urgency.
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    Created by Donald Clarkson
  • Allow commuters with disabilities to use free bus pass for commuting.
    At the moment the free bus pass is only valid for journeys which start after 9.30am. This seems illogical for a travel benefit which is specifically aimed at "people of working age". Imagine having a stroke in your early twenties, your life slips away to be replaced by dreams. You fight hard to recover, and learn how to walk. You want to volunteer at a local food bank but the bus pass you hold won't allow you to travel there on time. You were hoping that the volunteering might help you get a job. All you needed was a small helping hand instead of a closed door.
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    Created by Rebecca Woods
  • No to Fracking in North Staffordshire
    Fracking gets a lot of attention and rightly so. THere are the environmental aspects of the government striving to grow the burning of fossil fuels of which 'Frackgas' is one of them. The pollution aspect is even more painful with metals such as; arsenic, mercury, cadmium being brought to the surface for clean up. The cost to the communities will be through a massive cost to the Water companies who will pass these additional costs on to their customers. Millions of tonnes of chemical impregnated water will be used in the 'frackgas' operation and it will all need to be treated. Where will the cleaned pollutant residue end up? We have yet to gain an answer to this. Let us look at the visual impact. Stoke on Trent could end up with some 30 derricks blotting the landscape. We know that we have miles upon miles of coal bed methane trapped under our city and towns. There is this licence for 'Frackgas' or the dangerous technique of fracking coal bed methane. This is your country: Protect It
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    Created by Sean Adam
  • Scotland: Keep a minimum distance between crematoriums and homes!
    Would you like to attend the funeral of one of your loved ones only to hear the sounds of a neighbouring barbecue or a loud stereo? Would you like to live next door to a constant funeral procession, with all the associated sounds coming through your windows daily? The Scottish Government is proposing to allow crematoriums to be built and operated directly next to your house in their new Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Bill. The Local Government and Regeneration Committee will meet on January 6th to review their proposals. The Scottish Government have made a huge oversight in their new Cremations and Burials Bill: they have removed the requirement for any minimum distance to be upheld between crematoriums and homes. This is a vital protection for the privacy of mourners and home-owners and a minimum distance must be upheld in law. In the Government's own consultation paper on the bill (which they put out to industry experts to pass comment on their plans) 75% of respondents recommended to keep a minimum distance of 200 yards (see Q11 in this document: https://goo.gl/8PlZ93). The Consultation Report states: "Respondents were strongly in favour of retaining a significant minimum distance. Many who commented considered that the most important factor for retaining a minimum distance was to ensure privacy and dignity for both home owners and mourners. A substantial distance would also ensure adequate provision for memorial gardens and car parking." This petition asks the Local Government and Regeneration Committee to ensure the 200 yard minimum distance is upheld in the new Bill. Already in Haddington, East Lothian, the local planning authority has granted permission for a crematorium to be built in anticipation of the new law - construction has not begun yet but it will soon if the Bill is passed by the Committee this petition is addressed to. For the crematorium in question; there are several neighbouring properties, including a dairy farm. The closest home is only 45 yards away and has bedroom windows below the level of the proposed chimneys in line with the prevailing wind! The proposed car park for the crematorium is directly next to the garden meaning that both the home owners and mourners would have a huge lack of privacy. Imagine walking to your loved-one's funeral and hearing children playing or people laughing? Imagine trying to relax in your garden whilst mourners walk by. Also, emissions from crematoriums are still not entirely understood - particularly and most worryingly in the case of mercury which is present in tooth fillings and is extremely toxic to humans and animals. The Scottish Government hope that by removing the requirement for any minimum distance to be upheld between a crematorium and a home that local planning authorities will make the correct decisions on a case-by-case basis. However, the above development is a case in point that this does not work: East Lothian council owns the building in which the proposed crematorium is to be built and they have wanted to sell it for a number of years. They have agreed a deal with a crematorium developer to sell the building and therefore have a vested interest in ensuring everything goes smoothly in the panning process and, as such, have ignored local businesses and home-owners concerns and ignored all of the numerous negative impacts the development might have. They have abandoned due diligence in the pursuit of profit. If the Scottish Government allows this Bill to pass without upholding the minimum distance of 200 yards which is recommended by it's own consultation then it is condemning not only the people of Haddington but also countless others in future to have their homes and businesses - never mind the funerals all over the country - severely affected. The Government's job is to create legislation to protect people in all aspects life and if this Bill is passed into law without upholding any minimum distance between a crematorium and homes/businesses then the Government will fail in it's duty to the people of Scotland. It is clear that Local Planning Authorities are subject to prejudice and therefore fail to protect the people of Scotland given what has occurred in Haddington, East Lothian in anticipation of the new law being passed. Please uphold the minimum distance of 200 yards!
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    Created by Jamie Murray
  • UK should condemn beheadings by Saudi Arabia
    One of the 47 people beheaded was a Shia cleric. His execution has provoked outrage in Iran and Bahrain and threatens to further destabilise the Middle East and thereby threaten world peace. The 47 executions should be condemned by the entire international community.
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    Created by Pauline Fraser
  • End subsidised alcohol in the House of Commons
    When so many people are reliant on food banks and tax credits and the number of people living on the poverty line is rising it is disgusting that we should be wasting money on subsidising cheap drinks for MP's.
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    Created by simon keeping
  • Stop David Cameron ending lifetime council housing
    It will force more people on the streets and create more homeless people and children.
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    Created by Anthony Nelson
  • A New Dawn for The Rising Sun, Backwell
    Punch Taverns, the owners of the Rising Sun in Backwell are applying to turn the pub into housing. This would leave the village with only one pub at the far end of the village (over a mile away). We feel Backwell needs, and can support, more than one pub.  The Rising Sun is a great facility with lots of previously untapped potential.  We want to retain it as a pub, a place to meet, drink and eat, but also to use the many spaces within the building and gardens for community activities and groups. We are a thriving village with a strong and welcoming community - we support three schools, many sporting clubs, a music festival and a whole host of other activities.  Retaining The Rising Sun as a pub and breathing some much needed life into the space and business model would produce a profitable business that provides a real community and family hub - within a good old British pub environment.  Please sign our petition to show your support for turning The Rising Sun into an excellent community pub.  If we lose it to housing, it’ll be gone forever. Do look out for a survey about the pub coming soon - to make sure we gather the opinions of everyone in the community. We will also include some more information about how this exciting project could be delivered - lots of communities in the UK have saved their local pub! In the meantime, if you have any questions please use the Facebook page or email [email protected] and spread the word! Thank you!
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    Created by Linda Sweet
  • Save South Park Medical Practice, Reigate
    People in the South Park area will lose access to medical support and advice. People with in need of a doctor or nurse will have to go to A & E as there really aren't any spaces in the local surgeries. People with long term chronic illnesses like myself will be abandoned and left to cope as well as we can.
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    Created by Tony Wilkinson
  • Oliver Letwin Resign
    Our constituency MP's views are unacceptable to the people of West Dorset. David Cameron’s chief policy adviser helped to ward off cabinet pleas for assistance for black unemployed youth following the 1985 inner-city riots with the argument that any help would only end up in the “disco and drug trade”. He also warned Thatcher that setting up a £10m communities programme to tackle inner-city problems would do little more than “subsidise Rastafarian arts and crafts workshops”. The memo also quotes Letwin referring to plans to regenerate the riot torn areas of North London, stating, “Riots, criminality and social disintegration are caused solely by individual characters and attitudes. So long as bad moral attitudes remain, all efforts to improve the inner cities will founder.” There’s clear evidence that the beliefs he held in 1985 are still being enforced in government. In 2011, as riots again tore through the country, and as campaigners said this was a clear sign that poverty and inequality ran deep, the government responded as it did in Thatcher’s day, by claiming it was all the work of individual criminals – “those thugs”, as Cameron called them at the time. When he was shadow chancellor, he was secretly recorded telling the Institute of Economic Affairs that he would like to slash public spending by billions but that it would be electorally disastrous to do so. Again, there was no apology, with Letwin claiming he was the victim of “a farrago of nonsense”. In 2003, Letwin risked the Tories’ attempts to rebrand themselves as the party for ordinary working families when he claimed he would rather beg on the street than send his children to the local state school in south London. The Eton and Cambridge-educated politician conceded that he “wouldn’t mind” using a state school in his West Dorset constituency, but added that he aimed to get his 10-year-old daughter into “a particular public school in London”. In 2004 Letwin told a private meeting that the “NHS will not exist” within five years of a Conservative election victory. Paul Boateng, then chief secretary of the Treasury, seized on the gaffe, claiming it revealed the Tories’ true intentions “to abolish the NHS as we know it”. Mr Letwin, who is independently affluent; continued working part-time for a top City investment bank despite being a member of the shadow cabinet. Between 2004 and 2009, he claimed more than £80,000 of expenses for a cottage in Somerset close to his Dorset constituency. The property is in an isolated area and Mr Letwin claims for the cost of heating fuel and emptying the septic tank. (£4000 p.a.) During the summer of 2005, records showed that Mr Letwin took out a second mortgage for £100,000 on his cottage. Parliamentary records also showed that he charged the taxpayer more than £1,000 in mortgage interest for the property. He then increased the amount of mortgage interest that he wanted to claim back from the public finances by more than £300 a month, and told the parliamentary authorities that the new mortgage was to “fund repairs and improvement”. Within two days, the senior Tory telephoned the fees office to say that he had not started the work and had therefore “decided to withdraw the claim for [the] time-being”. The most controversial claim was made in September 2006. An invoice for £2,145 was submitted by Mr Letwin for “works ... to lay a new 25mm pipeline to replace the existing leaking pipeline under the tennis court”. The contractors also charged to re-lay the “turfs ... as practical on the sensitive area [around the tennis court].” In 2011 Letwin was branded “the most controversial politician in Sheffield” by the then deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, for allegedly saying he did not want to see more families in the city taking cheap foreign holidays. Also in 2011 Letwin was photographed dumping official papers in litter bins in St James’s Park. The Daily Mirror reported that Letwin was seen on five separate days binning sensitive correspondence in the park. The Information Commissioner’s Office later found that while he did not dispose of any government documents; the papers were his constituents’ personal and confidential letters to him. The latest revelations, that adds allegations of racism to his catalogue of gaffes is the last straw. We believe it is high time he resigned as an MP.
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    Created by Sean Geraghty