• #SaveOurIFT Save Our Infant Feeding Team - Stoke on Trent
    The Infant Feeding Team (IFT) Support breastfeeding families through support groups or one to one appointments in hospital and community settings. Breastfeeding facilitators are highly skilled staff and they also give guidance to formula feeding mothers who need help and give advice on infant weaning. The breastfeeding facilitators are being drastically cut in number and we are wanting to save their posts in order for families to receive crucial support. The IFT help parents to: Recognise if their baby is getting enough milk. Ensure feeding is a comfortable experience for mum and baby. Identify where more help is needed. They also address medical issues such as tongue tie to help babies to feed. Increase the social capital of mothers through facilitating group and peer support networks. Since IFT (or Mum2Mum as they were previously known) was founded, breastfeeding rates in the City have risen exponentially but we are still significantly less than the national average and more support is needed to encourage breastfeeding. So budget cuts to the service seem to be particularly inappropriate. A UNICEF study found that in addition to saving the NHS £40m a year, increasing breastfeeding rates could reduce the risk of a host of childhood diseases including gastroenteritis, bronchiolitis, ear infections as well as reducing the risk of breast cancer for the mother. Stoke On Trent Council has confirmed the benefits of breastfeeding in their own report dated June 2015, stating "Evidence shows that babies are five times more likely to be admitted to hospital with gastroenteritis and more likely to be overweight or obese in later life if not breastfed." Breastfeeding also helps to tackle infant poverty and goes some way to address health and social inequalities. With present government cuts to families support in reducing family expenditure through breastfeeding is needed. Without IFT new and existing mums will struggle and are likely to cease breastfeeding their babies which will create an increase in health and socio-economic issues for babies, mothers, families, the council and the NHS. Please Sign and share to help us Save Our Infant Feeding Team #SaveOurIFT
    2,951 of 3,000 Signatures
    Created by Fiona Ratic
  • BBC: Please continue to use the Met Office
    Please protect protect the UK public's long term investment in both great serving British institutions and sustain the collaborative, innovative partnership into the future. The Met Office is a trusted and respected world-wide leader in forecasting accuracy. The BBC is making a huge mistake in ending the current contract. It has provided the data used for BBC forecasts since the corporation's first radio weather bulletin on 14 November 1922. The BBC said it had to use licence payers/tax payers money efficiently, so had to use the 'market'. But do we want to continue with the experts in the field, albeit at a higher cost, or do we want to cut corners and give the contract to a foreign company just because they can come in with a cheaper tender? This decision is being made for short term gain rather than long term public infrastructure benefit.
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    Created by Colin Teasdale
  • Stop Las Iguanas forcing their staff to "Pay to Work"
    In this time of austerity, getting a job is tough enough as it is. For a chain like Las Iguanas, forcing their staff to pay to work - and profiting from it - is grossly unfair and entirely unnecessary. We have to stop it. I've eaten at Las Iguanas in Brighton countless times and it's disgusted me to know that money I left to the waiters and waitresses has been taken by the company. Simply put, this ridiculous policy is forcing staff to Pay to Work at Las Iguanas. If enough of us stand up to these disgusting practices, boycott Las Iguanas - and tell our friends to do likewise - they will have to change their ways. We will be handing this petition to Las Iguanas executives along with stories from their staff, so please sign this vital petition today. This is the way it works: Las Iguanas require staff to pay back 3% of their total sales for the night (5.5% in London) - in cash - to the management at the end of each shift. The money is meant to be paid by waiters from their pot of tips but, because it bears no relation to how much a waiter actually takes in tips, it can wipe out his or her entire income from gratuities in a busy night. Here's what one ex-staff member tweeted about the policy yesterday: https://s.bsd.net/38degrees/main/page/-/CBY/iguanas-tweet.jpg If a waiter processes an entirely normal £1,000 in a night then they will be required to pay the managers £30; staff have suggested this occurs even if they received no tips at all. One employee has said: “Over five shifts in a week is a substantial loss of my tips. Sometimes it works out as if I am paying to work, as for a five-hour shift I am paid £32.50 before tax.” The company claim this policy is to fund staff development and reward schemes for all staff, though Las Iguanas can take £34,000 a week from their staff using this little earner. Source: The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/aug/23/restaurant-tipping-policy-forces-waiters-to-pay-to-work, [accessed 24.08.15]
    89,909 of 100,000 Signatures
    Created by Sam Hughes
  • End the two-tier workforce at National Museums of Scotland
    In 2011 the management of National Museums Scotland broke an existing ACAS agreement and arbitrarily and unilaterally imposed a two-tier wage structure upon its lowest-paid workers (principally Cleaners, Visitor Services Assistants, Housemen, Security) without consultation or negotiation with the recognised Trade Unions. Staff employed since 1st January 2011 are on reduced terms and conditions without a weekend working allowance which is paid to compensate for having to work anti-social hours. Many of this lowest paid group only get one full weekend off once every seven weeks, which has a detrimental impact on family and social life. The consequence is that low-paid workers on the same shifts, doing the same work, are being paid up to £3,000 less than their colleagues. These workers make the National Museums Scotland the top rate attraction it is, and it is only fair that they get paid properly for their hard work. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation states that those earning under £17,100 a year are being paid a Poverty Wage, and many of our members earn well below that. Senior Scottish Politicians, in opposition against Westminster, have recently been calling for recognition of weekend working payments for those who give up valuable family and social time. These payments make up a large part of low-paid workers’ take home pay. PCS totally agree with safeguarding weekend working rights, and believe that if it is good enough for other workers, then National Museums Scotland staff deserve this too. Both Museum management and the Scottish Government need to embrace the principle of recompensing weekend work and accept PCS proposals to settle this long- running dispute. We do not believe that low-paid culture workers deserve to suffer at the hands of austerity, especially when heritage and culture contribute so much to the Scottish economy. The Museum’s own figures show that it contributes £65million to the economy. PCS Members at the National Museums of Scotland have been taking part in discontinuous strike action for over 2 years. Despite repeated requests to come to a negotiated settlement with management, this has not happened.
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    Created by Clara Paillard
  • MOVE STROUD BUS STATION
    Stroud's current 'temporary' bus station does not have the facilities a bus station should. Proper shelter, waiting room and cafe are examples. A potentially viable alternative site is London Road car park. Bus stops will remain at the current site, while the new site will become the station proper. If this possibility is to be further explored, support is needed from Stroud residents. This petition gives you the opportunity to lend your support to a cause which could benefit Stroud.
    487 of 500 Signatures
    Created by Lucian Aeris Picture
  • All Labour Leader Candidates to Back Jeremy Corbyn's Iraq War Apology
    I agree with Jeremy Corbyn that the Iraq war was a foreign policy mistake of horrendous proportions, for British democracy, for the Labour Party and especially for the people of Iraq. I believe that politicians should stand up and admit when they are wrong and if they Labour Party is to put this issue behind us once and for all.
    901 of 1,000 Signatures
    Created by Alastair Curtis
  • Change the 1979 Rule
    I was sexually abused by my father from the age of 7 to 15 which was 1979 My father was charged for this last month (july 15) and jailed for 24 years. Although I hid this for many years I have suffered all my life with the effects of what happened to me as a child. After the court case I was advised to make a claim to the CICA which I did and it was rejected, because I lived with my assailant and the abuse ended before the 1st of October 1979.
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    Created by Alissa Moore
  • Do not let the few ignore the wishes of the many.
    We must fight for our democratic right to be heard. We need to be fighting the con that is austerity, the Corporations, the City, not our own Party.
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    Created by Jennifer Barker
  • Save the Blakes Walk poplars in Lewes, East Sussex
    The poplars along the east side of Blakes Walk in Lewes East Sussex are to be cut down as part of the new development on the land adjoining Southdowns Road (Ref. SDNP/15/01303/FUL). For context, these are the tall trees to the east of the recreation ground at South Malling, on the opposite side to the river. Grid Ref. 541756,110897. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of this development, this destruction of trees, described as "poor" by the East Sussex County Landscape Architect Virginia Pullan, is completely unjustified and will substantially alter the character of this public footpath, used by the residents of Malling to walk into town. Her views, based on those given by James Newmarch, the Highway Tree Officer at East Sussex County Council, have been passed on to Stephen Cantwell at the South Downs National Park Authority. You can read her opinion, and decide for yourself HERE: http://planningpublicaccess.southdowns.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=NL6WUXTUFIG00 (Document dated 7/8/15 entitled 'ESCC Landscape Architect) However according to Town and District Councillor Daisy Cooper, in a quote provided specifically for this petition: “The proposal to fell some of the poplar trees on Blake's Walk flies in the face of British Standards that require processes of demolition and construction to put tree care at their heart. The tree survey recommended retention and protection, and residents staunchly oppose the destruction of trees planted in memory of a valued member of the community. The 79 units got the go ahead but the decision on the trees was bounced back to the County Council who owns them - it's not too late for the County to agree a scheme to protect all the poplar trees on Blake's Walk." Contact details: Virginia Pullan: [email protected] James Newmarch: [email protected] Stephen Cantwell: [email protected]
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    Created by Newell Fisher
  • Stop Bombing Syria
    The war in Syria has been going on too long and too many innocent people have been killed and are still being killed each and every day, and it is us who are killing them. Allowing our government to send RAF planes to drop bombs on innocent people is nauseating. Why are we involved? do we think this is helping the people of Syria? If we want to help the people of Syria, then allow more asylum seekers into the UK, that would be helping. How can you think it is right to bomb a country to smithereens , kill its people and then say no to allowing them a safe haven when they reach our shores. What hypocrisy! So far the 250,000 people who have been killed and maimed up to four times that number, according to the UN’s most senior humanitarian official, about 12,000 of that are Children We should not be apart of this war, and should stop all bombing of the innocent men, women and children. Please sign the petition to ask the government to cease fire on Syria now
    338 of 400 Signatures
    Created by Carol Carruthers
  • Save Wilnecote Community Halls
    Our aim is to keep this building open for the community. We need to reach out the people of Wilnecote and beyond and show the council that there is a big need for the building to stay open for the community groups that already use it and all those that could use it in the future. The Tamworth Herald recently covered the story and published the following: A whole host of groups in Wilnecote have rallied together in a bid to keep a beloved building where it currently is – at "the heart of the community". Earlier this year Staffordshire County Council revealed that the Wilnecote Community Centre was being sold and the site had been earmarked for a 'flexicare development scheme'. It was agreed that community groups currently using the centre could continue to do so until the end of the year. But now, members of groups including the 1st Wilnecote Guides and Attitude Performing Arts, which regularly use the building, have united to "save" the centre from being redeveloped – and keep it open to the community. Protesters have launched a community organisation called The Wilnecote Arts Centre Ltd and are hoping to raise enough money to purchase the building and retain it for use by local social and community groups. It is not yet known how much money the organisation would have to raise to secure the red-brick building. Christine Harris, a guide leader with the 1st Wilnecote Guides, said: "This building is and always has been a community hub. It's the only hub left in the area. If it goes and is redeveloped we are going to have more isolation in the area and could have more anti-social behaviour because nobody will have anywhere to go." "The amount of people who have joined together over this shows that there's a desperate need for it to stay as it is," added Wilnecote resident Christine. The centre, in Tinkers Green Road, is also currently used by a social group for senior members in the community, by the Wilnecote Residents Association and by a social group for adult learners with disabilities. Michala Hitchcock, an Attitude Performing Arts principal who has been involved in the organisation being established, said the centre "brings people together". "What we're trying to do is get as many local people being able to do activities that enhance the community as possible," she said. "We should be increasing participation in activities and improving people's quality of life and they are the kind of opportunities this building offers people." A county council spokesman said the council will work with everyone interested in the future use of the building. "This building formerly housed Tamworth Day Centre and Wilnecote Youth Centre and it has been included in a flexicare development programme because of the need for this type of facility in the area," he said. "After the youth service moved out, it was agreed that local community groups would use that part of the building rather than it remain empty. This agreement will last until the end of 2015. "A community group has lodged an interest in the future use of the building and the county council will continue to work with all interested parties throughout this process. An announcement on the building's future use will be made in the autumn." Cllr Ian Parry, deputy leader and cabinet member for finance, added: "In Staffordshire we want to ensure that we get the maximum benefits for communities and maximum value for taxpayers of every single county council owned building. As part of this, we have created a partnership to review sites, including those no longer in use, following a review of youth services in 2014."
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    Created by Nicola Holmes
  • Save Woodmansterne Green Belt
    We want to protect our greenbelt so that future generations can enjoy the benefits of our unspoilt countryside. They are planning on destroying 55 metres of hedgerow and trees without any consideration to the wildlife inhabiting it. A road will be installed through the field. We believe this is for future development. Security fences will block our footpaths which we are currently aiming to register as public right of ways According to our governments manifesto.(they proposed to make it easier for local people to have a say in planning and to save our greenbelt)Every part of this promise has been breached by Reigate and Banstead council. We don't feel the notification procedure was carried through adequately (as in ...very few knew until it was passed) We feel the water company Sutton and East surrey water have badly mismanaged their company and purely led for maximum profit rather than the benefit for the community and our future countryside. Only a decade ago they sold off a large area of their site for housing. They claimed that the reservoir/soakaway lagoon were redundandt and no longer required. Now they say their site is cramped and need an external location for a new lagoon. What next?
    1,174 of 2,000 Signatures
    Created by Debra Bassett