In a recent study around areas in South Hertfordshire, some villages saw up to 5-6 building projects going on. Consisting in three of the cases, knocking the bungalows down to create much bigger houses (given this is an already expensive area). In two of the cases adapting and extending (including an additional story built) the current buildings again, taking them way out of affordable reach of many who may actually need them.  We cannot continue to knock down or re-develop Bunglows at the rate we are. If we do this, there will be none left. Then those that are left, will be in high demand because of the additional interest of developers.  We need some form of protection about A) who gets priority to purchase B) some limitations on what can be done to them and C) protections against them being knocked down to provider bigger properties. 

🤔 Ever wondered what happens to the soft plastic that you return to the supermarket for recycling? Well, we've managed to find out. 🕵️ We placed tracking devices into 40 bundles of soft plastic packaging and dropped them at front-of-store collection points at Sainsbury's and Tesco supermarkets across England. 🔥 The results of our investigation reveal that 70% of the tracked soft plastic bundles that reached a final destination is burnt, not recycled.  🚢 The rest ended up at recycling facilities that downcycle soft plastic waste into products other than packaging – the majority of which were in Türkiye. ⚠️ Environmental law NGO ClientEarth warns that there is strong evidence that soft plastic recycling claims are misleading the public. 🛒 Since 2021, major UK supermarkets, including Sainsbury's and Tesco, have been rolling out front-of-store collection points to recycle soft plastic packaging, while “Recycle with bags at large supermarkets” labels are now seen across an extensive range of soft plastic packaging. 🙅 But soft plastic packaging is acknowledged by the waste management industry and the UK Government to be incredibly challenging to recycle... 🏭 With plastic production set to triple by 2060, these schemes are a symptom of a system that is out of control.  ✊ Supermarkets are part of the problem. But they’re also part of the solution. 🗣️ Now you can help push for change. ✏️ Sign and share our petition calling for Sainsbury’s and Tesco to publicly back a 40% cut in global plastic production by 2040.

Vaping can be used to help wean people off cigarettes and reduce the risk of lung cancer through smoking tobacco. However, many people who now smoke vapes have never been tobacco smokers. This is particularly true of children and young people.  Vapes are highly addictive due to their nicotine content. As recognised by the NHS, nicotine addiction affects  the nervous system and can lead to long lasting changes in cognition, attention span, and memory. Nicotine addiction can lead to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.  Nicotine also affects the cardiovascular system, increasing the risk of heart attack. Vapes contain a variety of chemicals. There is a lack of research into the long term effects of heating and inhaling these chemicals on the lungs and other organs. Moreover, many vapes that are sold do not comply  with UK regulations as regard chemical content with millions of illegal vapes being seized each year. The Chartered Trading Standards Institute have described those vapes seized as the “tip pf the iceberg.” Children and young people are highly exposed to vapes and this exposure is increasing. The latest research by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) suggests 72% of children had been exposed to vape promotion, mostly in shops and online. The research also found that around a million children aged 11-17 have tried vaping with approximately 230,000 children vaping more than once a week. The vast majority of these children have never smoked tobacco. Australia recently changed the laws on vaping to protect against the harms of vaping and nicotine dependence. The change in the law requires that vapes may only be sold at a registered pharmacy. Vapes may only be sold to  under 18s with a valid prescription. This regulation helps protect children against exposure to vapes and makes it far more difficult for children to buy them. 

In the early hours of 26th of August, residents of the Spectrum Building of Freshwater Road, Dagenham awoke to a fire tearing through our building. Over 80 of us were forced to evacuate our homes and we are lucky to be alive.  Fire alarms failed to go off, leaving us risking our own safety to wake up our neighbours. Fire escape routes were padlocked shut and the removal of cladding from the outside of our building had been delayed potentially worsening the disaster. The building is too unsafe for us to return to our homes or collect our belongings. Losing your home and all your belongings overnight is everyone's worst nightmare. But since losing our homes to the fire, we are living in constant insecurity. Join our call to Barking and Dagenham Council to demand security for tenants of the Spectrum Building Despite being temporarily housed in hotels and hostels, every week we are being made to pack up any belongings we have, check out of our rooms and wait to find out where we will be sleeping that night.  Alongside this, we are facing the threat of being forced into unaffordable accommodation outside of London, costing thousands of pounds we don't have, miles away from our work, schools, families and communities - at a time when we need them most.  This is a kick in the teeth after all we have been through. It means that at the start of every week we will not know where we will be sleeping that night. To those of us with young children and babies, we have to uproot them again and again and face uncertainty about our futures. We are being forced to miss work risking our employment and being put under ongoing stress and anxiety. We are families, workers, residents and members of the community and we have lost everything. We need a safe and secure place to call home while we get back on our feet.  Please help us by calling on Dagenham Council to stop these cruel and unnecessary practices and to make sure Spectrum Fire Residents have a safe place to call home.  Sign our petition now. 

Functional Neurological Disorder is a medical condition that affects how a person’s nervous system in their body works, its very important to get as many signatures as possible as there are many of us that have functional neurological disorder and we get no help with the condition and are left to suffer in silence, this is because dr’s and consultants and members of the public do not understand this condition and many people think there is nothing wrong with us when in fact we suffer really badly everyday with the condition, FND has many different symptoms that affects everyone differently on a daily basis, it is very important to get awareness raised of the condition and to give people a better understanding and insight into FND, and to get vital important research done into the condition, it’s also very important to get the government to listen and take notice of us with functional neurological disorder (FND) and to debate about the condition in parliament and to help raise awareness of the condition 

Conclusion: The current state of ticket pricing is creating a deeply inequitable environment where only those with greater financial means can afford to attend live events. By regulating Platinum and "In-Demand" ticket pricing, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, in collaboration with the UK Government, can ensure that all fans have a fair chance to experience live performances at a reasonable cost. We strongly urge you to take decisive action on this matter to protect consumers and uphold the integrity of live entertainment in the UK. 

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are cancelling the winter fuel allowance for pensioners and are calling upon us to make sacrifices and accept difficult financial decisions. This is a grave and unnecessary injustice that will cause great hardship among older people.  It would therefore  be consistent and appropriate for MPs to lose their own fuel allowance that they get to cover utility costs for a second home linked to their work as an MP, and share the pain with pensioners. And if they aren't willing to do that the Government should drop plans to scrap the Winter Fuel Allowance, and increase wealth taxes on multi-millionaires and billionaires, and the windfall tax on energy companies who are making billions in profit instead.

Calderdale is a popular area for leisure cycling, from road riders to mountain biking, after the Tour de France Grand depart put us firmly on the map. Despite this, utility cycling and safe routes on our roads are few. Communities across our borough are connected by Victorian roads which are small and become dominated by cars, making them feel unsafe for everyone else. To enable more people to employ active travel we support our council to develop miles more cycle routes on our main highways which are safe, direct and put our most vulnerable road users first. This can be an ambitious step towards making Calderdale an easier and more pleasant place to move around by bicycle, scooter, or on foot. We can show that more rural areas can have the same transformational cycling infrastructure that many major cities are now developing. Creating safe routes, physically separated from motor traffic using barriers, bollards and planters, will mean that active travel can be an option for all residents including children, older people and those who are less confident on roads. Active travel has numerous health and wellbeing benefits, and it should be accessible for everyone. Cycling and walking are ideal forms of transport for shorter journeys. By enabling more people to make those trips walking or wheeling, we will also create space for those who need to use cars for longer journeys. Calderdale Council and the West Yorkshire Combined Authority have ambitious 2038 net zero targets which will requite a step change in transport habits to achieve. Implementation of active routes will also significantly help reach these ambitious carbon goals as it will enable more people to move away from using motorised transport. Air quality in towns like Todmorden and Hebden Bridge, which currently have Air Quality Management Areas, will also see improvements as the number of cars on our roads decreases. Active routes will connect our neighbourhoods, market towns, employers and education, as well as providing an easier link to our rail network while helping to support our local economy. Delivering these schemes in the face of a few vocal objectors can be an exhausting and demoralising task. This petition reiterates the local support for active travel schemes, and asks Calderdale Council to continue to work to deliver them. 

The residents of Camborne are already struggling to do shopping as Camborne is becoming a ghost town elderly and disabled people are having to travel to Penzance and Truro to do there shopping or losing out unless they have a computer let's keep our shops 

Because it would reduce the carbon emissions we produce which contribute to global warming and would reduce the UK's dependency on energy imports from other countries. 

Tony Gurney felt motivated  to create this petition after hearing the tragic news about young Aalim Makail falling from the 15th floor of his family’s home in Plaistow.  (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4n1gn0qgdmo).  This is something that no family should have to experience and realistically some simple easy changes might make a big difference. Words do not describe the devastation Aalim’s family must be feeling adequately, or any other family in that situation. Additionally, I feel I have to add Emma Atkinson's name to this petition to ask the government to try and stop people falling from windows. It's unbelievable. How many people have to fall to their deaths like this? In her Prevention of Future Deaths report to Michael Gove regarding a man falling at Stretford House in Southport,  Senior Coroner Alison Mutch has stated that “It is a matter of concern that, aside from certain buildings designed for educational or healthcare use, or provided for vulnerable adults, current building regulations do not require fixed window restrictors to be fitted to opening windows in high-rise residential buildings; and in relation to windows of the type and design in use in Stretford House, there is no current requirement to retrofit fixed window restrictors.” (https://landlordsdefence.co.uk/man-falls-to-death-because-of/  ) Given Renoy Ellis, Emma Ramsay and Liam Payne falling it seems imperative to  review balcony safety law also .  One of the reasons that Tony was inspired to create this petition is because he helped a little girl who fell 60 feet from a window in 2016 in Southwark. She survived because of Tony’s  NHS training as an ODP, coupled the with optional First Aid Training provided by the NHS, and the support of the London Ambulance Service, London Air Ambulance and the NHS hospital they were taken to.  Previous Governments have done nothing to ensure tragic accidents like this never happen again and neither has any council. Tony still suffers from trauma symptoms to this day. He has wanted to try and take action to address this serious health and safety issue but was told not to due to his anger. Hearing about Aalim’s tragic death made him determined to try and address this issue. Tony asked his RSO for help in addressing this issue. Tony reports that he was yelled at, and told it was ‘none of his business’. Tony’s GP referred him to the Mental Health Team for a PTSD assessment, which unfortunately wasn’t undertaken at the time. It has taken Tony approximately 7 years to get help and he felt abandoned and alone. He does not want this to happen to anyone else in the future. Tony’s  GP and Local Council have no obligation in law to communicate with each other.  “I’m told by my GP that Council’s just throw their letters in the bin and ignore them anyway, hence paragraph 6. I’ve asked for help repeatedly and have been told the guidelines are more important than me and our safety. The stress of the situation is also making my Crohn’s, Fibromyalgia and ADHD worse.” Tony has finally started the PTSD Therapy, and he is hoping that by starting this petition it might help other people who have been through this experience in their healing, including himself, and to make sure adequate support is in place for the future. We also hope for all families to be protected and to ensure no one ever goes through what these families and communities have in the future. (Please note, we hope the consequence of paragraph 6 would be that it helps anyone with medical housing issues). Tony has been encouraged to find a creative outlet and created this video of a fall from 60ft (5th floor) https://youtu.be/aoshn6ffqc0  There is also another cost in children falling from windows in such tragic circumstances, and that is the cost to the staff of Emergency Services and NHS. They have to deal with something that is totally avoidable, and extremely traumatic. According to Rigas, “emergencies involving children are often considered to have a greater psychological impact on healthcare workers” and “The prevalence of PTSD in healthcare workers in critical departments reaches 30%, much higher than the general population (3.5%)”. He goes on to state that “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 80% of staff are emotionally and physically exhausted, while 45% of nurses reported not receiving enough emotional support”. (“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms among Paediatric Healthcare Workers” by Rigas, Jan 2024  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10801477/ ). Current Law states that window restrictors are ‘recommended’ rather than compulsory. According to Pyramid Solutions, “There are no laws in the United Kingdom that require window restrictors to be installed in buildings. However, the UK government recommends that window restrictors be installed in buildings with children under the age of five, as well as buildings with vulnerable adults, to prevent accidents and injuries from falls.” (Pyramid Solutions June 2024 https://pyramidsolution.co.uk/blog/window-restrictors/ )  Stopping a child falling from their home should not be an optional extra. It should be a legal requirement.  The fact nothing has been done to change this situation is a sign of institutional negligence. Local councils and central government could have done something to change this time and time again, but they have failed. Sir Kier Starmer has said he wants to reinstate faith in politics and move to a model of preventative medicine and this could help him achieve these aims. Given Senior Coroner Mutch's Prevention of Death Notification that was delivered to Michael Gove, it seems there is compelling need for these laws to be reviewed.  Further, in light of Renoy Ellis’ fall in Kennington, and, because of Emma Ramsay’s  and Liam Payne's falls in Ibiza (even though they are adults) and the incident at the Tate Modern in 2019, we ask for a review of Balcony Safety Law and hope that this conversation can be happen at an international level.  I hope that you will sign this petition in order to make sure we do everything that we can to avoid these tragedies from ever happening again and to help anyone affected by them with their healing. You might help change a lot of people’s lives and save their sanity as well as their children. Thank you  Tony Gurney aka Groover The Barbarian (With thanks to Jackie Frances for her help with wording the petition)

The safety of our community, particularly our children and elderly residents, is at risk. The constant vibration from heavy traffic is damaging our homes and causing distress. By uniting as a community, we can create a stronger voice and increase our chances of achieving the necessary changes to make our roads safe for everyone.