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Scotland: Keep a minimum distance between crematoriums and homes!Would you like to attend the funeral of one of your loved ones only to hear the sounds of a neighbouring barbecue or a loud stereo? Would you like to live next door to a constant funeral procession, with all the associated sounds coming through your windows daily? The Scottish Government is proposing to allow crematoriums to be built and operated directly next to your house in their new Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Bill. The Local Government and Regeneration Committee will meet on January 6th to review their proposals. The Scottish Government have made a huge oversight in their new Cremations and Burials Bill: they have removed the requirement for any minimum distance to be upheld between crematoriums and homes. This is a vital protection for the privacy of mourners and home-owners and a minimum distance must be upheld in law. In the Government's own consultation paper on the bill (which they put out to industry experts to pass comment on their plans) 75% of respondents recommended to keep a minimum distance of 200 yards (see Q11 in this document: https://goo.gl/8PlZ93). The Consultation Report states: "Respondents were strongly in favour of retaining a significant minimum distance. Many who commented considered that the most important factor for retaining a minimum distance was to ensure privacy and dignity for both home owners and mourners. A substantial distance would also ensure adequate provision for memorial gardens and car parking." This petition asks the Local Government and Regeneration Committee to ensure the 200 yard minimum distance is upheld in the new Bill. Already in Haddington, East Lothian, the local planning authority has granted permission for a crematorium to be built in anticipation of the new law - construction has not begun yet but it will soon if the Bill is passed by the Committee this petition is addressed to. For the crematorium in question; there are several neighbouring properties, including a dairy farm. The closest home is only 45 yards away and has bedroom windows below the level of the proposed chimneys in line with the prevailing wind! The proposed car park for the crematorium is directly next to the garden meaning that both the home owners and mourners would have a huge lack of privacy. Imagine walking to your loved-one's funeral and hearing children playing or people laughing? Imagine trying to relax in your garden whilst mourners walk by. Also, emissions from crematoriums are still not entirely understood - particularly and most worryingly in the case of mercury which is present in tooth fillings and is extremely toxic to humans and animals. The Scottish Government hope that by removing the requirement for any minimum distance to be upheld between a crematorium and a home that local planning authorities will make the correct decisions on a case-by-case basis. However, the above development is a case in point that this does not work: East Lothian council owns the building in which the proposed crematorium is to be built and they have wanted to sell it for a number of years. They have agreed a deal with a crematorium developer to sell the building and therefore have a vested interest in ensuring everything goes smoothly in the panning process and, as such, have ignored local businesses and home-owners concerns and ignored all of the numerous negative impacts the development might have. They have abandoned due diligence in the pursuit of profit. If the Scottish Government allows this Bill to pass without upholding the minimum distance of 200 yards which is recommended by it's own consultation then it is condemning not only the people of Haddington but also countless others in future to have their homes and businesses - never mind the funerals all over the country - severely affected. The Government's job is to create legislation to protect people in all aspects life and if this Bill is passed into law without upholding any minimum distance between a crematorium and homes/businesses then the Government will fail in it's duty to the people of Scotland. It is clear that Local Planning Authorities are subject to prejudice and therefore fail to protect the people of Scotland given what has occurred in Haddington, East Lothian in anticipation of the new law being passed. Please uphold the minimum distance of 200 yards!432 of 500 SignaturesCreated by Jamie Murray
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Save South Park Medical Practice, ReigatePeople in the South Park area will lose access to medical support and advice. People with in need of a doctor or nurse will have to go to A & E as there really aren't any spaces in the local surgeries. People with long term chronic illnesses like myself will be abandoned and left to cope as well as we can.100 of 200 SignaturesCreated by Tony Wilkinson
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Lock the Gate on Drigg -No More Nuclear WasteTo describe the UKs nuclear waste site as a “Repository” is putting a spin on the UKs main nuclear dump for "low level" waste. There is "controlled discharge direct to the Irish Sea" not to mention run off to the Drigg Stream and River Irt. Discharges to the air of radioactive gases are ongoing. According to the British Geological Society the Drigg site is above a regional aquifer. It is also "likely to be destroyed by coastal erosion" in 500 to 5000 years (computer modelling can be wrong either way) . Much of the waste is long lived and high risk. Below are a few of the reasons why it is important that Cumbria County Council Lock the Gate on Drigg: Planning Application PL\1508\05 (4/15/9012):The phased construction of additional vaults, higher stacking of containers..capping.. 1. Drigg Low Level Waste Repository (the word nuclear was dropped so as not to scare the horses) would continue to accept nuclear waste for decades to come. "Capping" is misleading. To cap” a nuclear dump is akin to putting a cap on a fizzy lemonade bottle while there are holes in the bottom of the bottle. The site will continue to leach aqueous emissions to groundwater and gaseous emissions to air. 2. LOW LEVEL: This suggests that the waste at Drigg is low risk and short lived. Neither is true. As the University of Reading has pointed out: “The Drigg site uses two disposal systems: 1) An original system operated from 1959 to 1988 comprising a series of parallel trenches excavated into glacial clays, back filled with LLW and covered with an interim water resistant cap. 2) Current disposal of compacted waste placed in steel ISO-freight containers, with void space filled with highly fluid cement based grout. These containers are then disposed of in a series of open concrete vaults. Radionuclides with highest activities in the inventory include 3H, 241Pu, 137Cs, 234U and 90Sr, 238U and 232Th. http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/16608/1/mrspaper.pdf 3. RADIOACTIVE FLY TIPPING: The chemical and nuclear dump site has moved on from the years 1940 to 1988 when chemical and radioactive waste was tumble tipped into trenches. Now the waste is compacted into steel shipping containers filled with cement. Incredibly the containers are stacked high. In 2013 the LLW management wrote: “in containers at the tops of stacks, the external capping grout has undergone extensive physical degradation and settlement; the lids are not full of grout, and the grout is generally heavily cracked. The state of the capping grout in underlying layers is better; most containers only show sparse cracking and typical settlement in the lid is approximately 15 mm. Standing water, sometimes contaminated with low levels of radioactivity, is present in approximately half of the containers at the tops of stacks. ..In containers at the tops of stacks, organic matter has accumulated beneath many open grout ports, with vegetation growing from some grout ports. ..Corrosion, sometimes fully penetrating, is present in some container lids at the tops of stacks…” http://llwrsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/30-RP-LLWRGR-PROJ-0139-Vault-8-Container-Issues-Project-MAS.pdf 4. FLOODWATER AND SEA INUNDATION: “The Environment Agency has given a formal view that “the potential for disruption of the site is an acceptable risk” By “disruption of the site” they mean inundation by sea and flood. This is a far cry from the Environment Agency's previous criticism in 2005: "BNFL (Now the NDA) has not yet demonstrated that the wider benefits to the UK from continued LLW disposal on this site outweigh the potential future impacts" We would hope that Cumbria County Council agree with the Environment Agency's 2005 findings that that the real and present threat of inundation of the Drigg site by flood or by sea is not an acceptable risk to the people of Cumbria or to our international neighbours. 5. THE COLLAPSE in 1985 of the largest black-headed gull breeding colony in Europe on the Drigg dunes has never been satisfactorily explained. The official explanation is that a fox did it! https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2015/12/29/disappearing-trick-birds-and-nuclear-waste/ 6. CHILDHOOD LEUKEMIA is officially blamed on "population mixing" due to the influx of workers firstly to the 1940 explosives factory (Royal Ordnance Factory) at Drigg and then the ROF at Sellafield. The irony of this incredible argument is that the plan for 3 new nuclear reactors at ' Moorside' a few miles from Drigg ('Moorside' is at the village of Beckermet) would involve a boom and bust influx of thousands of workers along with a further tsunami of nuclear wastes and ever more Driggs. https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-moorside-biggest-nuclear-development-in-europe Many of the Councillors expressed serious concerns at the meeting and yet the vote was unanimously in favour which, to campaigners and the wider public, smacks of something very fishy indeed. To rely on the testament of the Environment Agency who merely look at the information provided to them by the industry is reckless. All projections and computer modelling are based on information provided by the operators. Much of the Drigg site is already unable to be accessed for monitoring due to the stacking of containers. At the planning meeting on 15th July 2016 There was no discussion of a. the increased possibility of criticality with an ever increasing radiological burden. The words criticality “will not occur” cannot be applied to Drigg's LLWR : https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2016/08/02/drigg-decision-we-are-caught-in-a-trap-no-way-out-because-we-love-nuclear-waste-too-much/ b. the ethics of denying future generations the right to protect themselves, c. whether to warn future generations not to dig or distrurb the poisonous chalice beneath the land. d. the ethics of adding to an already intolerable radioactive burden on this vulnerable coastal site.2,221 of 3,000 SignaturesCreated by Marianne Birkby
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Improve mental health in East YorkshireNo more life's should be lost and our sons/daughters other family members should still be here now , we miss them and don't want no more family's losing loved ones bless the forever young428 of 500 SignaturesCreated by Rosie Bailey
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Please Don't Close All Swindon's Childrens CentresSwindon Council plan to Decommission the following five children’s centres currently provided by 4Children service to achieve a reduction in the budget for this service Drove Moredon Gorse Hill Pinehurst & Penhill Parks & Walcot East Instead, create a new family support service running from Penhill Sure Start Centre offering targeted help for families with vulnerable children Utilise the remaining four children’s centre buildings for early years’ education and wider community-based services The two family centres at Butterflies in Abbey Meads and West Swindon Family Centre are not affected by these proposals and continue to be funded in 2016/17 as part of the two year funding commitment made in 2015. This will also apply to the Ladybird Centre, Highworth Please also complete the consultation www.swindon.gov.uk/childrenscentres4 of 100 SignaturesCreated by Fay Howard
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Stop taxing the sickThis is so important, the poor and sick suffer even more from greedy car parking firms and a reluctance of government to do anything about it. Added to this is that we already pay for these car parks through our taxes which we pay for the NHS. It is public land our land. Please consider this petition and make the government listen1,424 of 2,000 SignaturesCreated by William Murray
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Why does dementia not qualify for free care like other life threatening diseasesMore people are getting dementia and losing their properties and their savings7 of 100 SignaturesCreated by susan wren
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Protect vulnerable patientsLimiting choice of dressings available to patients will increase costs in the long term as wounds will take longer to heal and more nurse time will be necessary. It will stifle innovation by discouraging UK companies from investing in dressings that could make a real difference, and will instead lead to job losses and ultimately compound the existing suffering experienced by patients with wounds. This could have a dramatic effect on morbidity rates for vulnerable patients and even lead to deaths in some cases.585 of 600 SignaturesCreated by Camila Fronzo
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Take My BloodThe stigma toward gay men regarding HIV and Aids, is outdated and no longer practical. The NHS need people to donate blood, people should not be exempt due to their sexual preferences. The risk of infection is equally real to us all; the reason that more gay men are diagnosed with HIV, is simply because more gay men get tested for HIV than hetrosexual men do. Hetrosexual men in GUM clinics are 10% less likely to agree to a HIV test than a gay male is (Source: Public Health England (PHE) (2015) ‘HIV in the UK: situation report 2015’). Let everyone donate blood for the life saving operations it's used for.37 of 100 SignaturesCreated by Thomas Looker
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Keep NHS bursaries - don't let Cameron run down the NHSNursing degrees involve much more work, and fewer holidays than most degree courses. Most qualified nurses will work at a band five and will not earn sufficient money to repay the loan. Most nurses already find their salary difficult to survive on, especially in the south of England where rent is high. Considerable research evidence indicates that the better educated nurses are, the lower the patient mortality rates. It is a matter of patient safety that student nurses should be concentrating on their studies, and not be trying to work alongside their studies. There is already a shortage of nurses, and removal of NHS bursaries will reduce the number of candidates for nurse training, and increase the drop out rate on courses. Then of course the government will say the NHS is not working and needs to be scrapped. I would urge everyone who values the NHS to sign this petition, and pass it onto others.424 of 500 SignaturesCreated by Susi Liles
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Relation Education for schoolsAs a nineteen year old there have been many things that I have experienced so far in my life. We all in someway have gone though a lot that we unfortunately had no help with or anyone there to to comfort us and tell us that its going to be okay. You have the good memories that we cling to so dearly, and then there are those which are not so great. Events that should have never even taken place, especially for those so young and vulnerable. The bad memories where you think I wish I would have known ‘this’ or ‘that’ then maybe I would have not been so lost and helpless in that situation. If that were the case you could have been somewhere else today. A lot of our youth nowadays are susceptible to making very life-changing decisions or mistakes that they were not warned or aware of as they were growing up. Our education system is so set on Sex Education being improved constantly and carrying out classes to younger and younger ages each year. In doing so each generation is thinking more about sex in contrast to accomplishing a fully content life with healthy relationships amongst friends, families and significant others. Instead we end up with unsatisfied young men and women who seek happiness in the wrong things and places, they take their loved ones for granted, push their family away and allow the road to anti-social behaviour and depression to creep in where it seems almost impossible for the individual to ever be happy with anything or anyone. My aim for this petition is to launch the start of Relationship Education classes for young people. Where we can teach children the values of trust, respect, loyalty, communication, love, and integrity in the right way. From being raised in a single parent family I saw my mother in the most damaging ways as a child. I saw her beaten by men and women, I saw her heartbroken numerous times, she was also very angry with the world. But the one thing I would see in her for the most part compared to everything else was of course disappointment. She would always weep and wonder why she never saw certain things coming or how she wishes she would have done things differently or maybe to have not done anything at all. Relationship classes should have been put in place a long time ago, God knows so many of us would have benefited highly from them. Classes where we can help guide our youth, pave out the road to success and point them in the right direction is something that should be encouraged not thrown to the side. Good relationships with others should hold far more importance than Sex Education which I do still believe is essential to be taught but definitely not more significant than building a happy community with one another. I believe these classes will help our schools to see a dramatic drop in bullying, absences and insecurities. Through this scheme we will teach mutual respect, the correct manner to communicate with one another and to avoid unkind comments or gestures that would hurt your peer in any way. In addition to this procedure we will have gained a large increase in sociable engagement with other peers, good attendance, confident individuals, an expansion on creativity and most of all a happy class. Not only will this benefit children during school time but the life skills they will attain will be practiced in the comfort of their own home, with family and friends, through college, university, in the workplace and so on.254 of 300 SignaturesCreated by Saira Kaur
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Save Our East Sussex Children's CentresBy axing these groups and asking parents and volunteers to run them will have a detrimental effect on safeguarding, mental health, islolation and parenting issues which will in turn place further burden on other health services. Parents and children need this vital day to day support. These are short term cuts with long term implications.254 of 300 SignaturesCreated by francesca merryweather
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