Successful Campaigns

16/01/23 We Won! To everyone who signed and supported, On Saturday evening Colehill Cricket Club completed and exceeded our fundraising goal to ensure that adult cricket can continue to be played at Colehill. The support we have received has been nothing short of extraordinary. Each and every donation, every signature or post share, no mater the size has been humbling. It cannot be overstated how much the support that we have received means to us. We move forward into a new season with the support of the local and wider community, both cricketing and non-cricketing at the forefront of our minds. This support will push us to be the best cricket club that we can be. The most engaging cricket club we can be, and the most welcoming cricket club we can be. We hope to do all of our supporters proud over the coming weeks, months and years. And, if you do find yourself in our sleepy corner of east Dorset, please pop by and say hello to Colehill Cricket Club. Now Your Cricket Club. Many thanks from myself (George), the Colehill team, and players & supporters past and present who will continue to share the joy we do, getting to play at such a wonderful ground.

Update 13/11/23 Following widespread public anger, including our petition, Rishi Sunak has sacked Suella Braverman as Home Secretary https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67401753

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-52732300

WHAT A CAMPAIGN WIN! 🙌 Thanks to each and every one of you that signed the petition, we caused the gov to open a consultation into the ban and more than 50,000 incredible people fed into it, sharing their views on a ban. It's now their move. Will they listen and take action to ban some of the most polluting single-use plastics sooner rather than later?? Visit our website to stay up to date on what's happening and find out how to get more involved with our vital plastic pollution campaigning work https://www.citytosea.org.uk/ With love from us and love from the oceans, Jo and the City to Sea team 🌊

The government’s official guidelines to protect people returning to work have been published. Thanks to pressure from unions, MPs, and more than 73,000 thousand of us the rules are stronger so more of us will be kept safe. When the government’s draft guidelines were leaked last week, tens of thousands of us leapt into action to push for improvements, and the government listened. There is lots more to do, but this is a step in the right direction.

A recent tweet from the DWP says this will not be government policy! But we'll be keeping an eye out to make sure, in the event of a snap election, plans to raise the pension age don't make it into any party manifestos.

The Government has decided that the prescription charge upper age exemption will remain at 60, meaning that it will not align to the State Pension age. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/aligning-the-upper-age-for-nhs-prescription-charge-exemptions-with-the-state-pension-age/outcome/aligning-the-upper-age-for-nhs-prescription-charge-exemptions-with-the-state-pension-age-government-response#introduction

12/09/22 It's been almost two years since we started our campaign to stop the proposed merger between Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, and University Hospital Sussex, but finally we have received the news we have all been working towards. All work on the merger has been stopped and we have been informed that this is not a pause but a final decision not to go ahead with the merger now or in the future. Recent whistleblowing by consultants at USH and the subsequent CQC reports highlighting significant ongoing patient safety concerns have proved that merger with them would have been a disaster for QVH. We want to thank each and every one of you that has been involved in supporting us during our fight to save these internationally respected specialist services. We now need leadership put in place that understands and values this unique hospital and its staff. Not a leadership team that is willing to sell it off the highest bidder, instead a leadership team that will fight for its future by building on its strengths and working with like-minded organisations. Thank you all for helping us to get our voices heard!

After over two years of campaigning and thousands of people signing this petition, the Chancellor has closed the holiday let tax loophole! Since 2019, nearly 36,000 homes around England have been lost to the tourist industry, and many more in Wales and Scotland. This announcement should help make more homes available for local people, which will make rents more affordable. Thanks to everyone to who got involved and helped us bring attention to this issue by signing the petition: you made this victory possible.

STOP PRESS - DECEMBER 2024 GALBA (Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport) is STILL fighting LBA's attempts to expand. So far, we’ve been incredibly successful in our five-year l battle. We have managed to block LBA at every stage of their expansion plans. But now LBA’s bosses have asked the government’s Planning Inspectors to overturn restrictions on night flights, at a Public Inquiry to be held in Leeds in March 2025. If LBA win they will be able to fly an UNLIMITED number of planes at night. Increasing night time flying is central to the airport's expansion plans. The reason is simple: unlimited night flying allows airlines to fly more of their planes round the clock, which means they can dramatically increase the number of flights at the airport. That’s what LBA’s appeal to the Planning Inspectors is all about. More night flights would mean more greenhouse gases from jet engines, polluting our fragile climate, when everyone knows we have to cut emissions as fast and as much as possible. The Climate Change Committee has repeatedly said that airports should not be allowed to expand because there are no large scale alternatives to the fossil fuels used to fly aircraft. OUR ORIGINAL CAMPAIGN We have successfully petitioned the Secretary of State to hold a public inquiry into the expansion of Leeds Bradford airport so that the full national impact of airport expansion can be assessed. The Public Inquiry was due to start on September 13th 2022. But Leeds Bradford Airport pulled out. Since then GALBA has been fighting expansion on many fronts. Here are some of the things we have achieved: We succeeded in calling for a public inquiry into the original planning application – causing LBA to withdraw its application. We achieved this win by using every tactic available to us, including the very best legal advice, an enormous public petition and a letter-writing campaign. We exposed hundreds of unlawful night flights at LBA over the past three summers. We were only able to do this because our dedicated and expert team literally logged every single arrival and departure at the airport – an extremely time-consuming and laborious process. Our hard work paid off because we were able to prove that the airport was not telling Leeds City Council the truth about night flight numbers and the Council was not independently monitoring them. We persuaded Leeds City Council to turn down the airport’s attempts to rewrite the rules that limit the number of night flights. This was a huge blow to the airport and we believe it only came about because Leeds City Council was not able to argue with our relentless monitoring and the detailed legal arguments that we presented to them. During this time we have kept our campaign at the top of the agenda. We’ve made politicians and the public take notice with a series of high profile demonstrations, letter-writing campaigns, petitions, fundraisers and media appearances. Why is this important? As we stand on the brink of climate and ecological breakdown, airports throughout the UK are trying to expand. Leeds Bradford, Bristol, Stansted, Manston, Southampton, Luton and Gatwick are pressing ahead with expansion plans. Supporters of each expansion claim that the increase in carbon emissions is small in a national context. However, the cumulative impact would be a huge increase in emissions at precisely the time we should be doing everything in our power to reduce them. Leeds Bradford Airport expansion is a test case. The local authority has approved expansion, claiming that carbon emissions from international flights is not a matter for local authorities to consider! So we have called on the Secretary of State, Robert Jenrick, to order a public inquiry so that the climate impact of expansion can be assessed in a national context. This is not just about Leeds-Bradford. Approval of this application would open the floodgates of expansion at other regional airports. The government must intervene to stop the planned expansion of regional airports if it is to meet legally binding environmental targets and avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. You can hear it from the experts. Over 200 Leeds Uni Academics already agree. https://www.galba.uk/post/press-release-246-uni-of-leeds-staff-and-researchers-ask-robert-jenrick-to-call-in-lba-decision Most importantly please share with your friends and family. Tell them why this matters so much to you. Thank you from GALBA - Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport