Horizontal hydraulic fracturing, ‘fracking’, is a way of extracting oil and/or gas. Water, sand and toxic chemicals are injected at high pressure into underground rocks to shatter them. This releases the gas/oil which can be collected. But investing in carbon-intensive fossil fuels is a distraction from the need to decarbonise our electricity supply. And it's hazardous. Studies show that fracking pollutes water supplies (with arsenic and lead), causes earthquakes, and spoils local communities. And there are nightmare stories coming form the States. Like in the town of Dimock, PA, residents have reported their water turning so brown that it stains crockery. Their water was later found to contain methane, and a host of toxic chemicals. But it gets worse. "My son had sores up and down his legs from the water." " My daughter... would have to get out the of the shower and lay on the floor." Those are the words from Greg Saunter, a local resident, whose water supply was shut off for his own good. He cannot shower in his own home. Or drink water out of his taps. Fracking has ruined his life. It cannot happen here. We call on the council to preserve the quality of life of it's residents, and reject all planning applications for fracking.

Horizontal hydraulic fracturing, ‘fracking’, is a way of extracting oil and/or gas. Water, sand and toxic chemicals are injected at high pressure into underground rocks to shatter them. This releases the gas/oil which can be collected. But investing in carbon-intensive fossil fuels is a distraction from the need to decarbonise our electricity supply. And it's hazardous. Studies show that fracking pollutes water supplies (with arsenic and lead), causes earthquakes, and spoils local communities. And there are nightmare stories coming form the States. Like in the town of Dimock, PA, residents have reported their water turning so brown that it stains crockery. Their water was later found to contain methane, and a host of toxic chemicals. But it gets worse. "My son had sores up and down his legs from the water." " My daughter... would have to get out the of the shower and lay on the floor." Those are the words from Greg Saunter, a local resident, whose water supply was shut off for his own good. He cannot shower in his own home. Or drink water out of his taps. Fracking has ruined his life. It cannot happen here. We call on the council to preserve the quality of life of it's residents, and reject all planning applications for fracking.

Horizontal hydraulic fracturing, ‘fracking’, is a way of extracting oil and/or gas. Water, sand and toxic chemicals are injected at high pressure into underground rocks to shatter them. This releases the gas/oil which can be collected. But this process is often hazardous. Studies show that fracking can pollute water supplies (with arsenic and lead), cause earthquakes, and spoil local communities. And investing in carbon-intensive fossil fuels is a distraction from the need to decarbonise our electricity supply. We call West Sussex Council to protect the quality of life of its residents and reject all fracking applications.

June 27th reminded me just how many teachers are fed up with the lack of knowledge and guidance being shown by our current Education Secretary, Michael Gove. We all know how he is making us feel. Over worked, under paid, undermined and unimportant. We are experts in our field, he is not. We need to do something now before it's too late. Please sign this petition and pass it on. Parents - we need your support too. Please support your local teachers and schools. We don't want to lose either of them.

A recent High Court Queens Bench decision to dismiss libel case HQ12X04053 on Summary Judgement has essentially eviscerated Whistleblower rights, rendering the Public Interest Disclosure Act, (PIDA 1998), worthless. The High Court's decision allowed an NHS Trust to manipulate "qualified privilege" to target a conscientious Whistleblower by directly sighting her "protected disclosure," made in good faith to the Health Professions Council, as a valid reason for retaliatory defamation and taking devastating punitive measures against her. This is why employees within the NHS do not blow the whistle on dangerous practice. Not only do Whistleblowers have their training, retraining and/or their career totally destroyed, their efforts are futile, often ignored and they frequently accomplish absolutely nothing. This Petition was drafted by Kim Sanders-Fisher, a student in retraining whose protected disclosure was violated; she has had a final Appeal to overturn the dismissal of her case denied. Case HQ12X04053 is in the public domain and can be reviewed at the High Court Queens Bench in London.

Given the recent revelations about GCHQ's 'Tempora' programme UK citizens are facing the greatest threat to their civil liberties in this country's history. Indiscriminate surveillance is being collected on the populace on a massive scale with no public mandate or accountabilty. This is being allowed through a legal loophole which would have been legitimised with the Snooper's Charter. If this kind of system is allowed to exist at all at the very least it should have a mandate from both the public and parliament - with external accountability and auditing. No publicly accountable body currently exists to audit this programme.

By acting like a bank, you forget your unique role in the financial sector at the time when you should be most mindful of it. As your website points out, “Nationwide has mutual status, which means that we are owned by and run for the benefit of our members”, rather than for profit. Mutuals and co-ops should be keeping the banks honest, showing them that social justice and financial stability go hand in hand. If the ethical alternative to big banks is paying its CEO 190 times the minimum wage, then what hope is there for reform of the rest? [See the campaign website link on the left for a fuller explanation]

***PLEASE READ & SIGN *** 'Anaerobic digestion', the sanitised label given to a facility that proposes to 'digest' 45,000+ tonnes of household waste, food waste, farm sewage, and other nasty pathogen laden waste into household energy. This proposal so far has only given the reasons that it will provide 'green' energy and jobs! Firstly: it will only provide 5 full time jobs for Ramsbottom in a site that will be largely automated. Secondly: It can become a health hazard as it will be plagued with bad odours and pathogens that will be carried over the Ramsbottom valley and in close proximity to heavy populated areas with many schools and areas of natural beauty. Thirdly: The traffic generated by hundreds if not thousands of HGV lorries full of waste and tankers full of toxic sludge rumbling through Ramsbottom, Edenfield & Shuttleworth will create, every year (for many years), a problem that is in itself not 'green' and will cause untold damage to the road network in and around Ramsbottom. A road network that is already creaking under the pressure of new housing estates Bury council seem to think fit to cram into an already over populated and under-resourced town. Fourthly: Ramsbottom is a thriving small market town whose businesses and consequently many jobs depend on visits by tourists and produce from local farms. A permanent stink and threat to health could very well put all this at risk. A public exhibition on the proposed plans by Peel Environmental and Marshalls to build an anaerobic digestion facility at Fletcher Bank Quarry, Shuttleworth will be held at Ramsbottom Civic Hall on Wednesday the 26th June between 3.00pm and 8.00pm though I doubt this will be an opportunity to question or complain, more a PR exercise by 'Peel Environmental' !!!.....rather an oxymoron if I've ever heard one! PLEASE READ & SIGN if you believe Ramsbottom should stay a town of natural beauty and a haven for tourists.

This is our last chance to save Croydon's libraries. When library closures were originally proposed just six libraries were under threat. The people of Croydon rallied together against the plans and more than twenty thousand people spoke out in support of our libraries through a public consultation. Residents’ views were ignored and the Council forged ahead with plans to privatise, slashing the library service via back door cuts to prepare for this process. The original divisive consultation made no mention of privatisation or outsourcing the library service. It only consulted on the closure of six rather than the whole network of 13 libraries. The public have never been consulted on the outsourcing of our library service, which is due to go through imminently. Serious concerns have been raised about the tendering process and the company which is due to run the libraries. Repeated requests for information have been refused. We have to let Croydon Council know that they cannot and must not ignore the wishes of the residents that they serve. If enough of us sign the petition we can force them to hold a debate on this issue so we can expose the truth and foster proper engagement and accountability: something sorely lacking in Croydon. The Council claims no buildings have or will be closed BUT a library is so much more than just a building. If we want our voice heard we must act NOW! http://soslibrary.blogspot.co.uk/

For the people of Weston-super-Mare and North Somerset it is vtal to protect our local hospital, its essential sevices and to resist the gradual spread of privatisation undermining the structure of the NHS. The Weston Area Health Trust is deemed too small to exist as a stand-alone trust, and the recent orgaisational changes changes have led to a £5 million shortfall in funding. WAHT has to find a new way of operating either by merging with another trust that has already achieved NHS foundation staus or finding a partner to run it as an operating franchise. We fear a solution where a private company could become the franchise operator as has happened at Hinchingbrooke Hospital. This is unacceptable for all of us that care about keeping our NHS public! So please,please show your support for the NHS andsign our petition against the privatisation of Weston Hospital.

The service times of the Glasgow Subway are not satisfactory. People often need to get around the city before 6.30 am, and particularly after 11 pm. The situation is even worse on Sundays, when there is only limited service available between 10 am and 6.30 pm - it is not even possible to get into town for e.g. a cultural event on a Sunday evening. Extending the service times would make public transport in Glasgow far more attractive. SPT is a public body, which means it is owned by the people, and hence it should meet their need for efficient public transport. (SPT often say "regular heavy maintenance" is needed to be carried out at night and on Sunday evenings - but other and often larger subway systems all over the world seem to be able to offer far better service times.) On top of that, and scarcely announced, the popular 10 and 20 journey tickets (for 12/22 £) were scrapped on 29 June without public consultation. They are meant to be replaced by 7 day and new 28 day season tickets: http://www.spt.co.uk/subway/smart/ However, season tickets are far more expensive - 45 £ for 28 days - and less flexible compared to 10/20 journey tickets because they expire. This lets down frequent but not daily travellers. This petition is not directed against new "smart" tickets per se, but against punishing regular but not daily travellers through a massive price hike. We really would like to know what SPT mean in detail when they say "SPT would like to reassure customers who have made use of our multi-journey tickets in the past that there will be a similar ‘smart’ ticket product in future." If, as SPT claim, the "smart" tickets cannot count to 20, then alternative solutions are possible, e.g. in the form of top up offers (pay 22 £, get a 28 £ top-up - this would be equal to the old 20 journey ticket). But making regular users pay for a single ticket every time (even from a top-up card) is not good enough - and increases the price for 20 flexible journeys from 22 £ to 28 £, a 27.3 % increase. Prices were already increased by 9 % last year ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-19300997 ). But still, there is no service improvement at all - we, the public, have to live with appalling opening times and bad access for the elderly, disabled and prams. A customer complains on Facebook: "The heart of Glasgow yet your happy t scrap 10&20 journey tickets that so many people rely on. I currently spend £22 a month using your subway. Your price changes mean you want me to spend £44. If your introducing "Smart" cards is the reason for this, then why are they not "smart" enough to deal with 10&20 journey? Disappointing and you have lost a loyal customer of 5 years from July!" Another customer says on SPT's Facebook page "I think your new 7/28 day tickets are just an excuse to make extra money, I work 4 days a week and only use the subway one way so a 10 journey can last me over 2 weeks, on your new system I would be more than double the money for the same period." As a publicly owned and run body, SPT is not serving our interests. Therefore we would like to ask Gordon Maclennan, SPT's Chief Executive, to listen to us as SPT's owners by improving service times and proving that the new "smart card" ticketing system lives up to its name and can handle 10 and 20 journey tickets.

HS2 is merely a politicians' vanity project. With passenger numbers forecast to increase even further, the aim of current and future rail improvements should be to increase train, stations and line capacity; to make life more bearable for current and future passengers, not to shave half an hour off a single route from London to the north. There are already many environmental opponents to this vast waste of taxpayers money. Surely a majority of taxpayers would support using rail money in a far more efficient way.