Blackheath Station Car Park is vitally important to the Blackheath Village community and must be protected.  It provides: - essential parking for access to Blackheath shops, cafés, restaurants, and pubs, supporting the local economy and plays a valuable role in maintaining a vibrant community. - parking for tradespeople working in Blackheath. - a safe drop-off and collection point for children attending John Ball Primary School as well as for parking associated with the school. - parking for access to Blackheath Station, enabling travel into central London and Kent for work, shopping, cultural, and leisure activities.  This is particularly important for residents with impaired mobility. -  space to host a busy Sunday farmers’ market, that is highly valued by residents. Local traders benefit greatly from the extra custom they receive on Sundays.

Gravesham Borough Council is taking disability-related benefits and premiums into account when calculating council tax, even though this money exists specifically to cover the extra costs of living with a disability. Disabled residents — including those who cannot work — are being forced to pay more council tax than they can afford. This policy is particularly harmful during the transition from older benefits (Income Support or Family Tax Credit) to Universal Credit, when many disabled residents only notice the change once they are already financially disadvantaged. Some have seen their council tax jump from £29 to £156 per month without warning. It affects both visible and hidden disabilities, including wheelchair users, mobility impairments, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, blindness, deafness, autism, ADHD, mental health conditions, chronic illnesses, rare diseases, and other overlooked conditions. This treatment is discriminatory, uncaring, and unnecessary. Other councils protect disability-related income, proving that Gravesham’s policy is a conscious choice to target the most vulnerable residents. We demand that Gravesham Borough Council: 1. Stop counting disability-related benefits as income in council tax calculations, including during Universal Credit transitions. 2. Reassess all current council tax liabilities for disabled residents affected by this policy. 3. Ensure future schemes comply with the Equality Act 2010, treating disabled residents fairly and respectfully. Disabled residents are not disposable. We will not accept being punished for circumstances beyond our control. Sign this petition and share it to demand justice and accountability. --- Call-to-Action / Social Share Line: “Gravesham Council is punishing disabled residents, visible and hidden, by taking our disability money for council tax. Sign and share to demand they stop!”

This issue is important because we want to make sure that all children no matter what economic background they may come from are able to afford and regularly buy a hot meal in school.

Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust is more than £54 million in deficit and already in delay paying suppliers. Instead of getting emergency funding, the Trust is proposing to slash night, weekend and bank holiday pay for thousands of staff – a cut of up to 30% for many take-home wages. This will force experienced nurses, midwives, porters, HCAs and doctors to leave for better-paid jobs elsewhere – just as winter pressures hit our hospitals hardest. Patients at QMC and City Hospital will wait longer and face greater risk. We, the undersigned, demand that: Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust REJECTS any cuts to unsocial hours enhancements and instead secures emergency funding from NHS England that protects both staff pay and patient safety. No more sticking plaster cuts on the frontline staff who held the NHS together through Covid and other challenges. The frontline staff did not cause the financial deficit in the NUH, and are vital for the patient's safety and care, more solutions exist.

Private companies are taking the money from Adult Social Care that is supposed to provide support but are not using it to provide adequate support.  Vulnerable adults are being left struggling to cope with daily living because they are not getting their allocated support hours. 

The BBC isn't perfect, but we must come together to make it better and stronger. We must use the upcoming Royal Charter review to protect our BBC for us, the British public. For too long, the public has been shut out of major decisions about the BBC. Governments have abused their power over the Royal Charter, twisting the BBC’s purposes to suit their own interests, while back-room negotiations have damaged its accountability. Right now, the BBC is in danger. Donald Trump is threatening to sue our public broadcaster for billions. But this is just the latest in a long line of attacks from people who want to weaken the BBC. We cannot allow the whims of foreign leaders or political pressure to dictate the future of our national broadcaster. The Government must put the British public at the centre of the upcoming Charter review to ensure the BBC answers to us - not to the likes of Donald Trump.

We call for: • Agreement in principle to a transfer of the site at a nominal cost of £1, recognising its historic purpose, community value and original donation to the people of Moretonhampstead. • An immediate pause on any sale or disposal process by NHS Property Services. • Support from the Integrated Care Board (ICB), our MP ,and NHS property services (NHSPS) to develop a health and community hub on the site which would include; district nurses, a care agency, GP overflow and local wellbeing services. Moretonhampstead Community Hospital was built around 1900-1901, under the patronage of the Hambleden family, for the people of Moretonhampstead and the surrounding area.. Although it is no longer a hospital with beds, it remains a valuable community space suited to hosting local healthcare, district nursing, a care agency, and wider community projects. NHS Property Services is now preparing to sell the building on the open market or to a charitable community bid. This comes despite more than a decade of pressure from the local GP practice, Wellmoor, and other local groups to secure a community-led future for the site. The Parish council has also been supporting the efforts to keep the building in public use.  To date, there has been no sustained support from our MP or the Devon ICB to help the community regain ownership of the building. We were informed that the district nurses had to leave the building because the roof was leaking and the site was unsafe. As soon as the building was vacated, we understand that Devon ICB was able to declare it surplus to requirements and begin the process of instructing NHS Property Services to arrange disposal. We are now told that the roof has been repaired. NHS Property Services has, to date, not permitted local organisations access to carry out a full independent survey. This makes it impossible for the community to present an informed proposal for reuse. The GP practice fully supports a community-led plan but cannot afford to buy the hospital and cannot relocate. The practice must remain in its existing health centre, which itself requires funding to renovate and improve.  There have also been broken promises from Devon ICB and NHSPS regarding parking provision in the hospital site which could help facilitate an extension to the GP Health Centre to future proof delivery of care. This makes a community ownership model even more important — ensuring the hospital building is used for hosting local healthcare, district nursing, a care agency, and wider community wellbeing projects, while the health centre remains the base for GP care. Local residents, the GP practice, and community groups are ready to take responsibility for the hospital if given the time and support and financial backing to do so. This would protect the building for NHS and community use and prevent its loss to private development. Witnessing this building edge toward a quiet sale is bleakly predictable. Rural primary care and rural communities have been treated as an afterthought by succesive governments — too small to invest in, too remote to understand, and too insignificant to trouble the priorities of larger boards. The government’s 10-year plan for the NHS barely acknowledges rural general practice. Our population struggle to travel to Exeter or Okehampton where alternative provision is located. The system continues to chase bigger solutions, bigger networks, and ill fitting administrative geographies. Yet every bit of real-world evidence shows the opposite: small communities work. We look after each other, we adapt, we are small but significant and we deliver care in ways no distant “neighbourhood model” would be capable of. This hospital has stood here for more than a century, shaped by the same landscape that shaped the town. Conan Doyle wrote about Dartmoor that “The longer one stays here the more the spirit of the moor sinks into one’s soul.”  It has sunk into this building too, into its granite walls, its purpose, and the generations it has served. It is remarkable that bureaucracy cannot see what is obvious to anyone who lives here: it is not surplus, it is an anchor. If it is lost, it will be because the system has forgotten what community healthcare looks like. 

It might be your parents or a relative that this could happen to. These are very elderly people and some confused or with Alzheimer’s and being moved would greatly affect their health and wellbeing. If Reform want to win the next General Election they are going about it the wrong way by targeting the elderly and care homes. If they need to save money look at other ways. 

We believe this proposal is unfair and discriminatory. It goes against the principles of fairness set out in the School Admissions Code (2021), which requires admissions to be reasonable, clear, objective, and procedurally fair. It may also breach the Equality Act 2010, as it disadvantages certain groups within the Binfield and Warfield communities. Every child deserves a fair chance to attend their local secondary school. Take Action Please sign and share this petition to help protect fair access to Kings Academy Binfield for all local families. If you haven’t already, send your consultation response by 24 November 2025 to: [email protected] Together, we can make sure local schools remain for local children.

Since the Low Traffic Neighbourhood was put in place in Blackheath Westcombe back in November 2024 businesses have started to struggle. Now, a year later, and the Council has decided to make the scheme permanent despite its negligible improvements to air quality, despite its displacement of traffic onto boundary roads and despite the high levels of inconvenience that it has caused both residents and businesses. Many businesses in both Westcombe Park and Blackheath Standard are recording a drop in trade of up to 30% and some will not be able to stay open for much longer. We believe that we make a really valuable contribution to our community, making it unique and interesting in a way that only such a large proportion of independent businesses can do. We urge the Council to listen to us, support us and accept our demands in order to keep this area vibrant. We need a cast iron guarantee that 2 hours free parking will remain on the roads where all of our shops are situated. We need the Car Park on Old Dover Road to remain. We need the LTN scrapped in its entirety. Or at the very least, the hours of operation to reflect the hours of business i.e. from 7.00 until 9.00 in the mornings and from 5.00 until 7.00 in the evenings. Plus the cameras removed from Langton Way and St Johns Park.And a permit system linked to individual shops that allow deliveries to be made without penalty.

It is important because lives are at risk

Most people already personally know someone injured in a road crash. 20mph is not a silver bullet- it is a basic plank of road safety just like people wearing seatbelts in cars. It is proven to reduce the frequency and severity of crashes. Speed limits need to be judged not only in the context of what is safe, but also what makes for a liveable city in terms of noise, tailpipe and brake dust emissions, ease of crossing roads, pleasantness of being on the pavements and so on. The remaining 30mph roads are largely single carriageways with homes and businesses each side, schools on or very near them and often in busy pedestrian areas. For example: - Outside Widcombe Junior School (A36) - Along Bear Flat High Street (Wellsway A367) - Both sides of Newbridge Primary School (A4 and A431) You can view a map here to view what little is left to do to create a 20mph city.  We will look back on 30mph in urban areas just like smoking in pubs, and be shocked at how long we tolerated the prioritising of speed over safety.  Enough is enough.