The health risks of coal ash are well known and widely documented; coal ash containing arsenic, mercury, lead, and many more heavy metals, many of which are toxic. These toxic constituents of the coal ash extracted will pollute the air, the land and our drinking water; this poses acute risks of cancer and neurological damage, along with damage to the heart, lung disease, kidney disease, reproductive problems, gastrointestinal illness, birth defects, and impaired bone growth in children (PSR, 2009; 2010; 2014*).   The planning application 2013/0223 can be seen here: http://applications.barnsley.gov.uk/PlanningExplorer/Generic/StdDetails.aspx?PT=Planning%20Applications%20On-Line&TYPE=PL/PlanningPK.xml&PARAM0=681860&XSLT=/PlanningExplorer/SiteFiles/Skins/Barnsley/xslt/PL/PLDetails.xslt&FT=Planning%20Application%20Details&PUBLIC=Y&XMLSIDE=/PlanningExplorer/SiteFiles/Skins/Barnsley/Menus/PL.xml&DAURI=PLANNING We are alarmed that the coucil only wrote to a small number of houses in out village when the serious risk of lethal air pollution will effect every resident in Elsecar, Hoyland and their neighbouring areas. The 40, 000 cubic meters of toxic coal ash this application hopes to extract from a residential area would contaminate the air that we breath; many of the local residents already suffer respiratory issues such as asthma, bronchiectasis, COPD and lung cancers, along with many of the other aforementioned health problems, due to previous coal mining in this area. The proposed excration of coal ash would exacerbate existing health problems due to previous coal mining, and cause new lethal health problems for the residents of the village - the toxic dust would also coat our buildings, plants, allotments, outbuildings, and vehicles.   The detrimental effects that the proposed works will have on our air quality and also our quality of life are not acceptable. The planning application outlines the use of 15 - 20 x 20 tonne lorries transporting coal ash for a 6 - 12 month period; along with the toxic air pollution, is the issue of noise from these works, which will be in very close proximity to our properties, causing daily disruption to the residents; the only routes available to access the proposed sites are all small roads in a populated residential area which is home to people and children of all ages using residential housing, primary schools, churches, doctors surgeries, heritage facilities, leisure facilities and access to local transport.    Furthermore, these proposed works also pose serious risks to our properties. We have detailed structural and environmental surveys from the purchase of our properties which highlight the fragility of the local land and the neighbouring areas from previous mining. Many buildings in the village, and others in the surrounding areas, have been affected by subsidence in the past as a result of previous mining, with many local properties having encountered structural damage as a result.  We feel the proposed extraction of 40, 000cubic meters of coal ash poses serious short and long terms risks to the foundations of local and historic buildings on land which has been mined previously, contains air shafts and has experienced previous subsidence - to the extent that some buildings had to have remedial works carried out, and some were demolished.  We are deeply concerned that this proposal - which will affect the entire village - has not been communicated to all the residents it will affect. Only a small number of residents received a short notification letter from the Development Service department at Barnsley Council, leaving the majority of the village neighbouring unaware of the dangerous works being proposed. Many residents are alarmed by the seemingly covert nature of the handling of this application. Please help us to reject of this application, as we are deeply concerned about the dangers it poses to the health of the local residents, and the risks to the foundations and structure of our properties and local buildings. Thank you for taking the time to look at our petition, we hope you will support us with your signature and by sharing this through social media.

SSCL has already cut 500 jobs across the UK. It's also announced the closure of three offices in Cardiff, Leeds and Sheffield, and is shipping 200 posts to India. SSCL, the joint venture company, is 25% government owned. The remaining 75% is controlled by French multinational Steria - one of the companies responsible for failing to deliver a £56m IT project, recently written off by The Ministry of Justice. Despite this, MoJ is now rewarding failure by awarding further work to the company. If this privatisation and offshoring goes ahead,1,000 staff in Newport and Bootle also face being privatised. More jobs could be lost. The staff in Newport and Bootle handle personal data belonging to thousands of public servants, prison and probation officers. This data would be at risk if it was offshored to a country without the UK’s robust data protection regulations. We want the government to use its stake in the SSCL company to prevent the offshoring of jobs and data and to stop future offshoring by ending its privatisation agenda.

We believe that elderly and disabled people in our community deserve the best possible level of homecare to help them live independently and with dignity. In order to make this happen homecare workers need to be treated fairly and decently so they can do their jobs to the best of their ability. UNISON are therefore calling for this through by asking Bolton Council to adopt our ethical care charter. Across the country too many people who need care and too many care workers are not treated with the dignity they deserve. A number of other councils such as Islington and Reading have already done the right thing and adopted UNISON’s Ethical Care Charter. Please add your name and call ask that Bolton Council take responsibility for ensuring better care for our elderly and disabled people and for better treatment of our homecare workers. We are all going to need care at some point in our lifetimes, it is only right that the people who need it and the workers who provide it are treated with dignity and fairness. For updates visit http://www.unisonbolton.org/ & follow https://twitter.com/UNISON_Bolton

People who save lives everyday shouldn't have to pay to go to work. NHS employees work so hard and are national superheroes. Why should they save someone's life then find they got a parking ticket? The money from the parking fees doesn't always go to the patient care or the NHS, it goes to private companies such as access and Vinci that 'run' the car parks. All these private companies do is check tickets and hand out fines, they may not grit in icy weather of provide any upkeep on the state of the roads. It's disgraceful. Most NHS staff are not paid a great deal and this extra cost is a strain on their wages and added stress for them. They have enough stress, they don't need parking tickets to add to it.

The UK screen for a third of the diseases other progressive countries screen for during the heel prick test offered to all UK babies. Increasing the amount of diseases screened for is very important for treating or curing diseases before symptoms appear. The issue was brought to my attention through a family having a child born with Krabbe's disease. Krabbe's disease can effect anyone. The disease is not recognised immediately and can often be mistaken for colic by parents and doctors, once diagnosed (typically between 2 and 6 months in infants) there is nothing that can be done medically to save the infant. The body's nerves degenerate until the child loses the ability to hear, to see, to feel, to swallow and then to breath. Typically an infant with Krabbe's disease will die before the age of two. This, along with many other diseases, is currently screened for in the USA, but not in the UK. So many diseases / disorders can be treated, or even cured, if recognised before the symptoms appear. From asthma to Krabbes - these could all be screened for during the heel prick test. Why is the UK only recently screening for 9 areas during the heel prick test? As a progressive country we are so far behind. We are not asking for miracle cures or favouritism, just the same chances for our children as others in progressive countries get.

The BBC is a public service with a remit to cover and analyse news, events signifying social & political shifts in the country, and not a spokesperson for power or corporate interests.

On Saturday 21 June 2014 50000 marched in one of our major cities London, but this was ignored by all the national newspapers bar one. There was also no coverage on any of the BBC News channels. I believe 50000 people marching in our capital city against the policy of austerity carried out by our elected government is news. Is this a further sign that the BBC is swinging to the right and therefore denying an alternative voice. I believe the BBC should, unlike our media Baron owned newspapers, remain unbiased but is this a sign that this is no longer the case.

In February 1974, 70% of 18- to 24-year-olds voted in the General Election. Fast forward to today, and our democracy is in crisis. Only half of the 5.6 million young people in the UK are registered to vote. Why? Because for millions of citizens, especially young people, ‘politics’ is seen as out of touch, complicated and unrepresentative. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The Voter Registration Bill will revolutionise our system of democratic engagement. 1. The Bill will empower Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) to take active steps to increase the shockingly low numbers of young, disabled or ethnic minority voters on the register. This includes organising at least one voter engagement session per year, per school or college. 2. The Bill will allow people to simply tick a box asking to be registered when filling in forms such as applying for a passport or driving licence - making registering to vote easy, simple and painless. The Voter Registration Bill is a golden opportunity to ensure that as many people as possible are registered to vote in advance of the 2015 General Election, and beyond.

After years of neglect under private ownership, South Parade Pier is in danger of collapse. This iconic structure has dramatically decayed over the past six months and is now boarded up and derelict, creating an eyesore for both local people and tourists. Although a sale was widely publicised, the pier has not been transferred to new owners and no remedial repairs have been carried out since the winter storms. Without proper investment, it continues to decay before our eyes. By signing this petition, you are demanding that Portsmouth City Council take action to preserve this Grade Two listed building, treasured by both residents and visitors to Portsmouth. By ordering the owners and operators of South Parade Pier to carry out end-to-end repairs, the council could reverse the decline of this key seafront area, encouraging growth for both new and established businesses - as has happened in many other seaside resorts. South Parade Pier has important historical and cultural value. British and Canadian troops embarked from there on their journey to Normandy for the D-Day landings in 1944. Winston Churchill and Montgomery addressed huge audiences there. Rock legends Pink Floyd, Genesis and David Bowie all performed there - and filming of The Who's rock opera 'Tommy' led to the infamous fire in 1974. Generations of Portsmouth residents and tourists have walked, danced and gathered on the pier since 1879. By lending your support, the pier may once again become both a hub for the local community and an asset for the city of Portsmouth - but we must act swiftly.

The proposed sale of the statue of Sekhemka matters to everyone because the issue stretches far beyond one of a single local council attempting to sell off the treasures it holds in trust for one local community and breaching the Museums code of ethics to do it. It is just the latest in a series of sales, or proposed sales of commercially valuable, nationally or internationally important items from local museum collections including those at Croydon and Southampton. The commercial sale of such material also impacts on people many thousands of miles away as it indirectly supports the illegal trade in looted antiquiteis and art. It is time a line was drawn and local authorities, like Northampton, are shown that the way to solve budget cuts forced by Central Government, is not to impoverish their local culture and put at risk other people's culture, by engaging in speculation on the commercial art and antiquities market. The sale of Sekhemka is opposed as unethical and in breach of the Museums Association Code of Ethics by the Museums Association itself, the Arts Council, the Arts Fund, every major UK Museum with an Egyptology collection and a roll call of museum and heritage professionals. You claim the sale will help you build a £14 million extension to the museum, but the math's do not work. Even if Sekhmeka reaches its top estimate you will still only raise less than a quarter of the sum you claim to have budgeted for the proposed extension. Besides, even if you do build the new museum, you will have nothing to put in it. The sale of Sekhemka will result in Northampton Council losing its Museums Association Accreditation, cutting off Northampton's museums and gallery spaces from any public, charity or lottery funding. FOI material shows you have already spent over £40k, to facilitate the sale of Sekhemka. That is the equivilent of the salary of a teacher and a museum curator who could be telling the children of Northampton about the statue and all the other treasures you hold in trust in Northampton's museums. The proceeds of the sale will not all even go to the people of Northampton because you have agreed to hand over 45%, as much as £2.7 million, as a free gift to the Marquis of Northampton, one of the richest men in Britain. It is a free gift because you have announced that Northampton Council Tax payers will be picking up the legal and auction house costs, not the Marquis. ...and the sale may not even be lawful- you refuse to release the legal advice you and the Marquis have been given because the precise ownership of the statue is disputed and you may also be open to judicial review over the sale itself. Finally, the eyes of the World are on Northampton and this unnecessary, unethical sale and your actions have an impact far beyond Northampton. The sale of cultural objects like the statue of Sekhemka boosts the hammer price of antiquities and indirectly supports the criminals and even terrorists in places like Iraq and Syria, who traffick antiquities from all over the world for sale in the developed world.

This needs to happen now because: 1. Council tax is regressive. Band A takes about 1% of the property value but Band H takes about a tenth of that. So, the more the house is worth, the less you pay. 2. At least 2,500 homes are worth at least £1 million in Brighton and Hove but the vast majority are not even in the top Council Tax band. That’s £ billions worth of homes only contributing about £7.5 million a year to local services, a tiny fraction of their value. Meanwhile, Housing Benefit has been cut but rents in Brighton and Hove went up on average by 27% over the last year. 3. The government gave councils responsibility for Council Tax benefits but gave them the funding less 10%, adding to the burden of already over-stretched councils. This means the poorest in the City are now required by law to pay Council Tax out of meagre benefits, yet residents living in the highest value property have only seen minimal rises to their council tax bills despite seeing the value of property increase an average of 12% in the past year. 4. The top rate of tax on income was reduced by the Coalition government from 50% to 45%. This means the highest earners have received a tax cut while wages have stagnated for the majority, and benefits cut for the poorest. 5. The poor already pay more of their income in tax than the rich http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jun/16/british-public-wrong-rich-poor-tax-research 6. Rising wealth inequality in Britain is one of the highest in the industrialised world and this has resulted in perverse situation where the top 1% own the same as the bottom 55% of the population http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/15/britains-richest-1-percent-own-same-as-bottom-55-population 7. The Spirit Level research shows that wider income inequality exacerbates and increases social problems, from health, to life expectancy, to education to others see http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/ 8. Thomas Piketty shows that the value of wealth has increased faster than the value of wages, effectively entrenching the circle of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/28/thomas-piketty-capital-surprise-bestseller. Progressive taxation should be used as a policy lever to address high levels of inequality. This is something the Coalition government are ideologically opposed to but this leaves space for truly radical and progressive local politics to make bold an brave decisions. Brighton and Hove City Council has the power both to make reductions in household council tax bills due to Council Tax Reduction regulations, and it also has the power to establish free standing benefits, outside of Council Tax regulations, to make local funding more progressive. For more details and examples of what can be done, please go to our website www.newdeal4brightonhove.org This petition will be presented to Full Council in October 2014, but the campaign won’t end there. When the petition is presented, we are granted a 3 minute speaking slot. This will be available on the council’s online podcasts.

I have been a registered psychiatric nurse for more than twenty years. I am gravely concerned regarding the situation unfolding within our communities and mental health services as a whole. Times are difficult and I appreciate the need for financial constraint but fear we have gone too far down this road. Following the suspension of our local psychiatric inpatient unit in 2012 our area has been without sufficient inpatient beds to meet the needs of its community. Consequently people are being placed in intolerably difficult and potentially life threatening situations, as people are discharged prematurely to free up beds, increasing pressure on dwindling community resources. Similarly people are becoming unnecessarily acute symptomatically, prior to admission, necessitating Mental Health Act Assessment, where timely intervention would minimise the need for such measures. Services are at breaking point and I fear a significant rise in untoward and avoidable incidents were sufficient resources in place. The lack of adequate inpatient beds is resulting in many of our most vulnerable being hospitalised in an untimely manner, hundreds of miles away from family, friends and the familiarity of local support and services, exacerbating difficulties arising from already fragmented care and a lack of continuity and seamlessness within service provision. Waiting times for care co-ordination are in excess of 3 months. Something I have never before encountered, leaving people in the community unsupported and without service provision. Timely intervention at the point of referral is critical to recovery, promoting well-being and optimising the efficacy of community based solutions, as alternatives to hospital admission. My purpose in writing to you is as advocate to those I serve. They are amongst the most vulnerable and I fear, increasingly neglected members of society. I respectfully petition you to bring their plight to the attention of government and support my plea to you, to support the urgent need for adequate inpatient beds, per head of the population. Services are in collapse and otherwise avoidable tragedies are going to become common place. In the last two years 1291 acute inpatient beds have been c!osed. Below is a list of individuals within my local authority, who at the time of writing are being accommodated in inpatient wards a great distance away from local facilities. There are 60 such local authorities in England alone: 19 year old hospitalised 85.2 miles away from home. 20 year old hospitalised 83.1 miles away from home. 23 year old hospitalised 48.2 miles away from home. 27 year old hospitalised 75.6 miles away from home. 27 year old hospitalised 76.8 miles away from home. 30 year old hospitalised 105.5 miles away from home. 34 year old hospitalised 222.6miles away from home. 47 year old hospitalised 82.7 miles away from home. 54 year old hospitalised 316.3 miles away from home. 58 year old hospitalised 237.8 miles away from home. 68 year old hospitalised 81.5 miles away from home. 73 year old hospitalised 69 Miles away from home. 93 year old hospitalised 81.2 miles away from home. My greatest fear is these difficulties are not locally based but reflect a national crisis within the provision of services for those in need of acute psychiatric care.