Council bullies in solar loo grab! Local residents face a David and Goliath battle with Hackney Council to retain ownership of the community restored Brooksby’s Walk public convenience. The Council plan to terminate the community’s lease on 8th February. Residents re-opened the toilets serving Chatsworth Road, left closed by the Council for 30 years. After a long campaign and formation of the Clapton Improvement Society, they were granted a 5year lease in 2013, with the promise of a 100year peppercorn lease to follow. The Society raised funds from the Lottery and loans from members to renovate the toilets and convert the gents to a café/restaurant to pay for their maintenance. The current operator is David Bez’s Pride Kitchen, a vegetarian café. Altogether more than £40,000 has been invested. Clapton has Britain’s only luxury sustainable solar powered free public toilets as a result. But from the beginning, the Council has made life difficult for the volunteers. Officials raised a series of petty complaints about the works done by local contractors. Building inspectors demanded an expensive sprinkler system and then didn’t issue the certificate after completion of the works. A local councillor raised unverified complaints about the café and persuaded the licensing committee to refuse an extension of hours, which had been granted planning permission after an appeal to the independent planning inspectorate. Now the Council’s estates department is seeking to terminate the community’s ownership on wholly spurious grounds (including not having the building completion certificate) without any plans to keep the toilets open. “It’s an outrage!” says Society secretary Mary Doyle. “ As someone who is wheelchair fast, this is the only local toilet I can use”. “The Council has always resented our campaign to re-open the toilets and provide decent facilities on the street. Now they want to steal our community asset. Far from helping community initiatives as they boast in glossy reports, they undermine, bully and ignore them when they can.” PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION!

We are concerned that the Conservative Government’s under-funding of the NHS has meant: In Reading: • The Royal Berkshire Hospital (RBH) is expected to make additional cuts of £45 million by 2020. • GP appointments are becoming harder to get with many patients having to wait weeks to see their doctor. • GP surgeries, like Circuit Lane Surgery, have been unable to provide good quality care and have been rated inadequate. • A&E departments are unable to cope, with many patients having to wait for more than 4 hours – failing a key target. The Royal Berkshire Hospital has missed this target. Nationally: • Patients are waiting for hours on trolleys in corridors. • Thousands of non-emergency operations have been cancelled. • NHS budgets are not keeping up with an ageing and increasing population and cuts to social care budgets are putting further pressure on the NHS. • The UK spends a lower proportion on health than other EU countries resulting in fewer doctors, nurses and beds per patient. • NHS staff are leaving due to poor pay and increasing workloads and stress. In 2017 33,000 nurses left the NHS.

We do not accept the level of power that is given to the developers of our city. We demand that all new housing developments should have both insulated buildings AND renewable energy. This requirement should not be dropped because of 'urban design'. We do not accept unsustainable development that contributes to climate change; our communities need clean energy, transport links, and schools, doctors surgeries and amenities.

This is hugely important because through blood donation we can save many people’s lives. It seems that gay men are only not allowed to give blood because of highly alarming rates of HIV within the community. However, this is awfully discriminative, considering thousands of heterosexual people give blood, even though they may also have sex with someone who has an STI. This means therefore that people should be inspected through a case-by-case basis, rather than categorised into not being allowed to give blood just because they simply identify as a homosexual man. I find this outrageous, that the current law states gay men have to not have sex for a whole 12 months in order to give blood. It is said to be reduced to 3 months, however, I deeply believe this is still unfair, as heterosexual men do not have to abstain from having sex if they want to donate at all. I am sure homosexual men want to donate blood just as much as any other man in this world and they should be given the right to do so. We see adverts all over the place saying that someone with a rare blood group needs a blood donation and enlarging the group by including homosexual men (after checkup for any serious STIs) could also help this, as they surely also have rare blood groups that may not be found in anyone else in the population.

Because he is responsible as health minister for systematically underfunding and under resourcing the NHS and alienating the doctors and nurses he serves. We would like to register a vote of no confidence.

There are far too many deaths and accidents on rural roads and much time and energy and money goes into debates and changes in Communities and Councils all over the United Kingdom. Meanwhile we have the same black on white stripe sign on hugely varying stretches of road which gives a 60 mile blanket de-restriction. I am proposing a Green stripe replace the black on the sign on roads which have all or some of the following hazards, particularly prevalent in rural areas :- The road has many bends where vision is restricted, is too narrow in places for 2 cars to pass, has no pavement but is used regularly by walkers, cyclists and horse riders, particularly when part of a bridleway follows it on the ordinance Survey map, farmers drive sheep and cattle along it from field to field, the road is used heavily by farm vehicles of all sizes as well as all other types of road user. It is the main through-fare for communities. I am proposing that the maximum speed limit would be dropped to 40 or 50, but this is for debate as well as a No Overtaking except of stationary vehicles rule. Communities across the UK could then apply for this new category of driving limit in their area which would require no extra signs, just a very bright green rather than Black stripe and would be Nationally recogniseable. I am sure that many people as in our community have their own stories of fatalities and near misses and would welcome a solution that would at least give drivers a slightly different rule and understanding of the road they find themselves on.

Although there are some brands who make plastic-free bags, Tetleys tea bags - Britain’s biggest tea bag manufacturer - contain 25% plastic. That level of plastic is considered the industry norm. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ditch-teabags-and-help-save-the-planet-swfjjqzpd) An estimated 2,500 tonnes of plastic enters British urban ecosystems each year due to the plastic hidden in tea-bags. As highlighted in David Attenborough's Blue Planet, plastic pollution is eaten by fish and other wild animals, damaging their digestive systems and entering the food chain in large quantities. All through plastic hidden in the tea bags we’re using for our cuppas."

This is important to me personally as my son is one of the people suffering from this illness and he has already lost the site in one of his eyes, so I feel I must do anything I can to end this scandalous situation.

The NHS Clinical Commissioning Group for BANES is consulting to make drastic cuts in IVF treatment locally. Only women between the ages of 23 and 35 will be eligible (and you need to have started trying for a baby from 33 yrs old -- 2 years before treatment is offered). By the time young people may feel more financially secure, it will be too late for them to access IVF treatment if they need to. But this is exactly the age when women's fertility starts to drop sharply and they will be most in need of IVF and related treatments. The well off will be able to afford to go privately for IVF treatment - but not others. This is a complete abandonment of the main principles of the NHS: that treatment should be available to all, irrespective of wealth or income. Why should people be discriminated against on financial grounds? The proposal to cuts in IVF treatment in BANES is cruel and will be devastating to thousands of younger people over the years to come. It is appalling that harsh government cuts have resulted in a situation where provision of NHS treatments is becoming so arbitrary and unequal Infertility is a medical condition that should be addressed like any other organ impairment and addressing organ impairment or failure should not depend on ability to pay. The consultation ends on 27th December. The CCG is inviting comments on the link below. Contact.http://www.bathandnortheastsomersetccg.nhs.uk/say-proposals-restrict-access-three-non-urgent-services

Cottage Hospital Acute and Maternity beds are being closed in small or cottage hospitals leaving huge areas with no places to discharge people who are frail, live alone or have mental conditions leading to General hospitals being unable to take in patients ( Black or Red Alerts)

This is important because there are lots of disabled people in Poole, who have no mobility at all. They can not sit on a toilet, an need to be lifted out of their wheelchair to be changed. They are expected to be put on a dirty toilet floor to be changed which is not acceptable, let alone hygienic! This is neither safe for the disabled person, or the carer that is having to lift them in and out of their chair! I.e weight issues. Many families can not/ will not use certain places because there are no suitable changing facilities which is discrimination!

Street workout is growing worldwide in maximum speed. Thousands of people at all age practice this kind of workout. Eastbourne is one of the places in the UK where the World Cup of calisthenics took place two years ago. But there is no park to train and it's a shame. It would give a young people opportunity to improve a good health, strength and to develop a fitness skills. Please help me change that. Everywhere around parks are being built. If you are not sure what the calisthenics is , don't worry and don't be afraid to check the link below and see what this is all about. This is a short clip of the World Cup Stage in Eastbourne in 2015. https://youtu.be/HWvWGRDw6oY