Harmful emissions from vehicles are responsible for 90% of air pollution – and in Birmingham alone, up to 900 people per year die early as a result of air pollution. High speed limits, high traffic volumes and queuing vehicles significantly increase air pollution – and we recognise all of this on the A441 in Bordesley. Over the years, Bordesley has seen an increase in traffic levels, traffic queues and heavy vehicles. In addition, Bordesley has seen a significant increase in speeding vehicles. As a result of all these factors Bordesley has high levels of air and noise pollution which is now affecting the health of the residents.

We have to move quickly to prevent Persimmon Homes from going ahead with this request. The additional traffic along our already congested residential roads will lead to further congestion and the potential for more accidents. We see this as an attempt by Persimmon Homes to overturn the planning condition to build the access via a new roundabout on the A120.

We have lost huge amounts of history over the last several decades. Newton Abbot is a thriving market town with 800 years of market history. The Mills are a substantial part of this. They employed hundreds of people during the Industrial Revolution. We must protect and restore these impressive buildings and medieval leat. As shown by the alternative proposals, the site can be converted and brought fully to life, with a greater number of homes than the current planning application. Demolition will also release countless tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, which along with mass construction is a highly damaging and backwards step in a time of climate crisis.

To protect wildlife and the environment. To stop people like me getting more frustrated and depressed.

The Grassroots repair movement is not here to be used as window dressing for the contested sustainability ambitions of major fast fashion corporations. This is not the first time a Big Fashion brand has co-opted an important sustainability event for its own ends. We know from bitter experience that the wrong sponsorship can destroy an important movement. It distracts from the deep work that needs doing and ultimately reinforces a status quo that creates more stuff, more waste, and more emissions. Founding Signatories: The Restart Project; Lucy Siegle, journalist; Tansy Hoskins, journalist, Aja Barber, author; Livia Firth, sustainable fashion campaigner; Eco Age; Ealing Repair Cafe; Repair What You Wear; Hackney Fixers; Sustainable Hackney; Emma Mathews, Socko; Ros Studd, Repair What You Wear; Sophie Benson, journalist; West London Restarters, Hillingdon Friends of the Earth, Transition Tooting; Zack Polanski, Green Party London Assembly Member; Olivia Pinnock, journalist; No Sweat, & Brett Staniland, model and sustainable fashion editor. (More founders welcome!)

Chris Packham the TV presenter is part of an organisation called Wild Justice and last year they raised the issue of glyphosates being used by local authorities in public spaces. Glyphosate (also known as Roundup) is one of the most-used individual pesticides in the world. It is used as a herbicide in agriculture, in public spaces (such as parks but also in the streets) and in private spaces such as gardens. Wild Justice encouraged people to contact their council to find out about the local situation. They provided a template to allow people to submit a Freedom Of Information request. Sustainable Bramhall contacted Stockport Council and the reply is below; Stockport Council is clearly still using glyphosates: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/herbicide_use_requests_for_infor#incoming-1903081 The use of glyphosates is an issue about which many organisations have raised concerns, over time, such as Pesticides Action Network. [1] In March 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as ‘probably carcinogenic to humans’. [2] There is a live debate about glyphosate’s environmental impacts and use in gardens. [3] Glyphosate kills plants that insects and birds depend on for food. The Soil Association reports that research indicates potential impacts in increasing crop diseases, changing the composition and functioning of soil micro-organism species and ecosystems, and recently published studies are showing a negative impact on earthworms. [4] There is also evidence that glyphosates can enter water courses and affect plant life there affecting habitats for other organisms. Recent research also suggests that glyphosate can kill honey bees by affecting their immunity to pathogens. [5] Bees are essential pollinators of plants including crops for food. Please sign our petition to ask Stockport Council to give up on glyphosates. If you still use them at home, perhaps you should give up too, but be careful of how you dispose of them. References: [1] https://www.pan-uk.org/pesticide-free/ [2] https://www.iarc.who.int/featured-news/media-centre-iarc-news-glyphosate/ [3] https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/glyphosate-debate [4] https://www.soilassociation.org/media/7202/glyphosate-and-soil-health-full-report.pdf [5] https://e360.yale.edu/features/bee-alert-is-a-controversial-herbicide-harming-honeybees For more information about the Wild Justice Campaign see here: https://wildjustice.org.uk/glyphosate/glyphosate-use-by-local-authorities/

This week it was revealed that the Director of the British Museum, Hartwig Fischer, is in advanced talks with BP about renewing their sponsorship deal. It’s vital that we don’t let another five years of BP sponsorship of the British Museum - or even a new ‘BP wing’ as part of its $1bn redevelopment plan - go ahead. It’s time that the British Museum picks a side on climate change, and stops sending the message to its visitors, especially young people, that fossil fuels can be a part of a liveable future. The plans to renew the sponsorship come as BP announces obscene profits, while people in the UK are being forced to choose between heating and eating, and the company admits it will continue to drill for new oil and gas for decades to come, despite the climate emergency. The trustees have a legal duty to protect the reputation of the museum. They must step in now, following in the footsteps of other major cultural institutions, and drop BP as a sponsor.

On 30th July 2020, hedgehogs were added to the Red List for British mammals and classified as vulnerable to extinction. The Dartford Hedgehog Project and wonderful hedgehog groups across the country are doing their upmost to help this species recover, by raising awareness of their needs, encouraging communities to allow access through hedgehog highways, provide shelter and suitable food - such as dry kitten food with a high meat percentage. This has had a positive impact in urban areas, however there is still a long way to go! Also, sadly, well meaning people are buying products labelled as specialist hedgehog food, but as food for wildlife is currently completely unregulated, this can lead to deadly consequences for hedgehogs. A lot of the food supposedly designed for them contains ingredients such as wheat, calci worms, meal worms, fruit, sunflower seeds, nuts or oats. Eating too much of this causes teeth issues and metabolic bone disease in hedgehogs. This is a debilitating condition that eventually leads to an agonising death. It is simply unacceptable that products that can cause such harm are currently allowed to be sold freely! We are therefore calling on the government to bring in regulations to the sale of food specifically labelled as suitable for Hedgehogs! Written by Green Party Cllr Laura Edie, On behalf of Dartford Hedgehog Project.

CALL ON BUCKINGHAMSHIRE COUNCIL TO STOP INVESTING IN FOSSIL FUELS The British public generally are rightly worried about climate change and biodiversity loss. But do you know that UK pension funds enable more CO2 than the entire UK carbon footprint? Halting the extraction and expansion of fossil fuels is a matter of survival for us all. Our local leaders must act now. They may say they do better to stay invested with fossil fuel companies and challenge them from the inside, to transition into more sustainable activities. But, “shareholder engagement with fossil fuel companies has not, and will not, lead to change on the scale and in the timeframe necessary” . (Quigley et al, 2021)* We call on Buckinghamshire to stop financing fossil fuels. Start financing a sustainable future. *https://www.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/sm6_divestment_report.pdf

While we accept that the council erected this fence with good intentions it became clear quite soon after that it was not required. Other areas of the park have been open for a long time and it seems this fence is just a leftover. It has though, a detrimental effect on park goers and should be removed forthwith and not be linked to any subsequent decisions over opening the paddling pool.

There are very few places left in Newark where wildlife can be experienced in such abundance, making the lake an intimate and life-changing place for adults and children who visit. Our birdlife is in serious decline too. - Populations of UK native birds are 11% lower than they were in 1970. - Balderton Lake is an important site for Kingfishers. These small unmistakable bright blue and orange birds fish from riverside perches. They are listed as a Schedule 1 species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, meaning no activity which could disturb them between March-August is allowed. - Due to populations severely declining in Britain or because they are considered under threat of global extinction, the red list of Britain’s most endangered birds has recently increased to 70 species. - Iconic birds to Balderton Lake including swift, housemartins, starling, mistle thrush, house and tree sparrows are on the 'Birds of Conservation Concern' red list. - Birds on the amber list including greylag goose, mallard, woodpigeon, sparrowhawk, wren and song thrush have all been recorded feeding, nesting, residing on and visiting Balderton Lake. Further concerns we have on YMCA using the lake for leisure activities - Habitat will be destroyed and removed to provide the infrastructure and access to the water at peg 16, including storage facilities. - To access peg 16, people will have to carry boats across a busy Sustrans cycle route – posing a significant hazard to users and cyclists. - Water sports will have a detrimental effect on the habitat and wildlife using the site. - Water sports will create noise pollution and water disturbance to residents and visitors of the current tranquil site. - The quality of the water is not safe enough for canoeists due to high levels of excretion from the waterfowl, fish and small mammals that live in and on the banks of the lake. Please sign our petition calling on Balderton Parish Council to save our important wildlife legacy, for both the wonderful species that depend on this habitat and residents and visitors who value this tranquil site at the heart of Newark. This petition is supported by residents of Balderton (Save our Wildlife and Nature – SWAN). As well as signing this petition we also encourage you to write your concerns to Balderton Parish Council.

Aquind must be stopped. This project erodes our democratic rights. It is no longer simply a planning issue and goes beyond the significant impact it will have on local communities. Aquind's planning application must be refused on the grounds of an unfeasible route through a densely populated island city with unique wildlife areas and green spaces ending in a National Park. The negative impact on traffic, residents and wildlife is too great. The people of Portsmouth, communities along the route, Portsmouth City Council and Portsmouth’s Tory and Labour MPs unanimously oppose this project yet Aquind consistently dismisses these concerns. It is also unnecessary and surplus to the Government's own projected interconnection needs; by the time it is operational (in up to 7 years' time), it risks being redundant. The massive data cable it wants to lay alongside the high voltage cables falls outside the planning remit. There has been no proper scrutiny as to whether Aquind is an appropriate company for such a significant national infrastructure project. The Tory party has taken over £1.5 million in donations from Aquind-related sources. Nearly 1 in 10 Tory MPs took donations. The BBC Panorama and Guardian investigation into the Pandora Papers financial leak raised questions about the murky financial dealings of Aquind's owner, Viktor Fedotov – questions that the Tory party has not answered. The Business Secretary has even written letters of support to Aquind during the planning process. Any decision made can't possibly be impartial. Communities should not be cut off from decision-making by the cosy relationships business and ministers create with their political donations from opaque offshore companies, revolving doors and contracts for mates.