Successful Campaigns

UPDATE: 16/11/16 Success – and it’s all thanks to you! Today we’ve had confirmation that Haringey Council will be resettling ten Syrian refugee families in the borough via the Vulnerable Person Resettlement scheme! However, so far no timescale has been announced for when the refugee families will arrive, so it’s crucial that we keep up the pressure and continue our campaign.

7/4/20 Good news - people power has delivered! Randox, the Northern Ireland diagnostics company which has developed a rapid test to identify Covid-19, has confirmed it is no longer selling its tests online for a high price and is now working directly with the NHS. On Saturday it was confirmed the new NHS testing centre at SSE Arena in Belfast would be using Randox test kits. We need to remain vigilant, but because of you and thousands of others who took action when it was most needed, Randox have been forced to act. This much is clear right now: by coming together and taking a stand, we can force people in power to sit up and listen. Thank you for taking action. More power to you, Nicola, Act Now Coordinator (a collaboration between Uplift and 38 Degrees)

8/12/14 - Thanks to all your support online and in person, at the petition signing events and protest, we were able to reach The Mayor Luthfur Rahman and the Cabinet, who on 3rd December 2014 announced that all 4 public nurseries i.e Queen Mary, Mary Sambrook, John Smith and Overland are to stay open!

The threat of privatisation has been removed after the MoD decided to keep veterans services in the public sector.

UPDATE! 5/9/16 Lewisham Council’s Planning Dept have just confirmed that Barratt London have finally withdrawn their planning application for a 19 storey tower. They will instead implement the original consent for an 8 storey block on the site between the stations. This is a fantastic victory for sustained grassroots community action, and could not have happened without the support of all 1639 of you. A big thank you to everyone who turned out for the crucial Planning Committee meeting in March: this massive demonstration of local opposition contributed hugely to this wonderful final outcome. And special thanks to all those who helped spread the word locally, e.g. by distributing leaflets. We could not have summoned up such powerful and effective opposition without you.

Thanks to your support the St. Andrews GP out of hours service has been saved. Last Friday the Fife Health and Social Care Partnership Board agreed to the remodelled service for North East Fife. It will mean that no-one, except a small number of people, will have to travel to Kirkcaldy to receive help with a primary care emergency. There is still work to be done to ensure smooth implementation which will probably take until Christmas but it is believed that the new flexible arrangement can last. It will involve slightly reducing the opening hours in the evening, using other health professionals, bringing together the minor injuries with the minor illness service and using the GP in the centre at night to do home visits too. The campaign was won thanks to you and the thousands of others who signed my petition, sent in a postcard, attended the packed public meetings and so much more. Also thank you to the coordinating group of community councils, the university, students, GPs and others who worked together to find a practical solution. I will continue to keep you informed of progress. You can find more regular updates at www.facebook.com/WillieRennieFife Willie Rennie Member of the Scottish Parliament North East Fife

09/03/18 - We Won!! We are delighted to say that at the Council's Transport and Environment committee meeting on 9 March, the Council’s Strategy for Setted Streets and the full restoration of the Brighton Place setts were approved. It has been a long fight to have the 2016 decision to remove the setts from Brighton Place reversed. It is fantastic that the right decision was made to preserve this integral feature of the conservation area, which enhances the setting of the fine Georgian architecture. The approval of the Strategy for Setted Street strengthens the protection of all setted streets across the city. Thank you for all your support. We could not have done this without you. Best wishes Douglas Read

10/04/19 We did it! Newcastle Council has declared a Climate Emergency, promising to make our city carbon neutral by 2030!! Thanks to your support for this campaign, climate change is back on our Council's agenda. But of course, the devil’s in the detail… Here’s the full story: We presented the almost 3,000-signature petition to Newcastle City Council’s meeting on Wednesday Evening. I asked Taymar Pitman from Newcastle Green Party to speak in support of the petition inside the Council’s chamber, since she’s been instrumental in helping me to understand Council procedures and has regularly joined me out on the street in freezing weather to gather signatures - along with many other Greens and supporters of the climate pressure group Extinction Rebellion, among fabulous others. Taymar explained to the council why each of the petition’s four points was critical to tackling the climate emergency. A crowd rallied outside the Civic Centre to push our Council to take climate action. We were also joined by supporters of Save Newcastle Wildlife’s campaign opposing a new open cast coal mine at Dewley Hill near Throckley, on the edge of Newcastle. Despite the Council delaying the debate about the climate emergency into ‘extra time’, we got a pledge from them to make Newcastle carbon neutral by 2030! However, the Council ignored the petition’s call to set specific targets for sectors such as housing and transport, and refused to commit to the annual progress reporting we’d asked for. Their ‘carbon neutral’ pledge (not ‘climate neutral’ as we’d asked) also ignores other climate-warming emissions such as methane and nitrous oxides. I’m glad the Council expressed a desire to divest their pension fund from fossil fuels, although again with no firm commitment. I very much hope that myself and other supporters of this petition will be invited to take part in the Council’s proposed new ‘Climate Change Convention’, bringing together businesses, residents, academics and the public sector to create a city-wide plan for action! The lack of commitment to a timeline worries me though, given that the Council have previously failed to meet the ambitions set out in their past climate change plans. Nonetheless, Newcastle Council’s recognition of the climate emergency opens up a window of opportunity to keep pressing them to take rapid, ambitious action to tackle the looming threat of climate breakdown… To continue to build momentum, I’ll be again joining the #YouthStrike4Climate’s #FridaysForFuture rally this Friday outside Newcastle Civic Centre (12 April 11am-2pm), as well as working alongside Newcastle Green Party, and Extinction Rebellion [I’ll be talking about their campaign at Jesmond Library on 25 April 6pm during their North East action week], to keep the pressure on our Council to urgently agree it’s plan for climate action! Newcastle Green Party also ask me to invite supporters of this petition to contribute their ideas for continuing the push for urgent action at their meeting tomorrow (Thurs 11 April 7pm at Commercial Union House, 39 Pilgrim Street NE1 6QE) or for a celebratory drink afterwards at the Tyneside Cinema Bar opposite (8.30pm). Friends, I thank all of you for signing, sharing and supporting this successful call on Newcastle Council to declare a Climate Emergency – together we have put climate change firmly back on our leaders’ agenda in Newcastle. I hope you will join me in continuing to push for urgent climate action, and thank you again for your support, Clare Petition link: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/declare-a-climate-emergency

25/01/23 We got what we wanted!

Today Kent County Council voted to restore all night streetlighting with the much more efficient LED lighting in a roll-out programme. This is a great win for all those who campaigned for the Big Switch-off to be abandoned via the online petitions and the doorstep campaigns we ran in various parts of Kent. This shows grassroots campaigning works! Thank you for signing the petition Keep the lights on in Kent!