Successful Campaigns

Problem sorted

Essex County Council have announced that all libraries across the county will remain open. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-48922247

Many of you will have seen the fantastic news that plans to build an incinerator at Barton Stacey have been scrapped. The MPs, campaign leaders, councillors, residents and others who have contested the plans, or have agitated and informed all deserve huge credit. As North West Hampshire MP Kit Malthouse - who campaigned against the plant alongside Caroline Nokes MP - said, “This is great news and a tribute to the community’s campaign against this project”. Thank you, too, for signing this petition that played a small part in illustrating our collective opposition.

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

We won! In a decision that set a new national precedent, a government planning inspector granted permission to keep Kirkby Moor wind farm running until 2027. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-49515965

We won! Tony is allowed to stay in his Home

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

19/12/22 Great news! Due to the pressure you put them under, the government have agreed to pay out the £600 energy support to households in Northern Ireland in January! We'll have to keep an eye on them to see exactly how it happens, but this is a big win and you helped play a part in it. And we know it'll be a big relief to people with the news coming just before Christmas. This is what our community is all about - showing up and never giving up. This wouldn't have been possible without your support. Thank you! More here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vital-help-with-energy-bills-on-the-way-for-millions-more-homes-across-great-britain-and-northern-ireland

Just a few days after we handed in our huge petition to Westminster Council, the planning application to move the statue was withdrawn! Sir Niel Thorne, the former MP behind the bid to move the staue of Emmiline Pankhurst from its historic home said: “we realised considerable pressure was being put on Westminster City Council, who’d find it more difficult to approve moving the statue.” Thanks to our pressure, Emmeline Pankhurst will remain by Paliament - thank you! https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/16/emmeline-pankhurst-statue-will-remain-near-parliament-plan-move/

03/10/18- Exciting news! It's just been announced that Paul Ermitano and his wife Jamila have been granted visas to stay in Britain. The couple were called by the Home Office on Wednesday morning and were told their case had been reconsidered and that they had been granted visas until June 2020. Mr Ermitano, 31, said "thank you was not enough" to say to all those who had helped him. https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/a-cardiac-expert-and-a-nurse-who-were-facing-deportation https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-45735853