Our homes and businesses here in the Calder Valley, just as in many areas of the United Kingdom, flooded on Boxing Day 2015 and again in the last two weeks (February 2020) due to Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis. Many of us have lost what was replaced or salvaged last time when any flood measures put in place by the Government since 2015 proved wholly insufficient. To be honest, it has been devastating to lose so much again. The community always rallies together and helps each other but the Government does not do enough. We have been suffering through flood defence works totalling £32m since Spring 2016 - what with air pollution, earth works damaging buildings that were already flooded, noise pollution, never-ending traffic jams, building works 6 days a week and through the night - and that still hasn't completed for the one village that has gone through it. The scheme has yet to progress to other towns flooded on Boxing Day 2015 and, in the case of Elland, they are due to get no flood defences at all because the Environment Agency said it was not cost-effective. To refuse to give flood resilience grants to those who have been flooded, whose homes have not been protected despite the millions paid by the Government to private contractors, is beyond heartless. Many of us have struggled to get insurance at all, despite Government promises and the Flood Re scheme, and those of us who do have incredibly high premiums that local emergency grants simply don't cover. Most of us who flooded this time flooded last time as the costly flood defence works were both incomplete and actually left us further exposed due to flood walls that were overtopped in 2015 being taken down by the Government contractors VBA and not replaced, due to works not having been done throughout the valley and due to the Environment Agency's own planning deeming certain areas sacrificial and not cost-effective to protect. In the recent Statement on Flooding in Parliament, on being pressed by Halifax MP Holly Lynch, the Government said the recently announced flood resilience grants - intended to help properties become more resilient to future floods - would not be available for those who flooded last time and who therefore received a grant. The £5,000 is a blanket amount irrespective of how inundated properties were so those who had a foot of water in their cellar received exactly the same grant as those whose homes were flooded all through. Depending on your property and how the water gets in, the grant would cover the average cost of 2 flood doors and frames which is £4,000. A sump pump in the cellar might cost you £1250/£1500 but it would only work for as long as there was working electricity. Part of the grant had to be spent on approved surveyors carrying out a Flood Mitigation Report. Our flood mitigation report identified necessary measures costing over 3 times the £5,000 grant and even then, it said, "Due to the location of the building, flood remediation measures will not totally prevent flooding in the future, but if properly implemented may reduce the incidence of flooding by slowing or preventing water entering the property, reduce damage and loss should flooding occur, and allow faster recovery from flooding in the future." Even spending that money did not stop us being flooded to the same degree, only this time the main points of water ingress were through new points of weakness created by works done to the neighbouring property by the Government contractors VBA. Arguably, the only owners of homes and businesses who didn't receive a grant last time and who are therefore eligible this time are those who didn't own that home or business last time. Many of those bought those properties at knockdown prices precisely because of the Boxing Day 2015 flooding devaluing and damaging properties; in some cases, they also benefited from works carried out by the Government contractors.

The GP out of hours service in Inverclyde has been under pressure for some time with regular closures. This means that patients routinely have to travel to Paisley or Glasgow for treatment overnight. This puts patients at risk and for many in Inverclyde means a journey of over 20 miles just to see a GP. These changes come amid warnings of further service cuts at Inverclyde Royal Hospital and many trauma services also being moved to Paisley and Glasgow. Inverclyde needs a fully functioning health service and, at the very least, that means a full GP service.

The homes of the people of the UK are far more important than a vanity project to build a whole new line to cut travel time when the infrastructure already exists to do this. The Great Central Railway was closed in the 1960s and has the capacity to take high speed trains. It survives almost totally intact and would serve the same purpose as HS2 at a fraction of the cost. ‘ Re-opening The Great Central Railway fulfils all the main objectives of HS2 without the excruciating cost, the environmental objections and absurdities of the latter project.‘ https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/there-is-a-far-better-option-than-hs2-and-it-already-exists/ People are suffering and putting the money saved from a ridiculously inappropriate vanity project into flood defences will save livelihoods and protect our communities.

We would like Essex County Council to know that the people of Colchester are desperate to address the air quality and traffic problem in the town - but we need to give people a clean, effective and affordable alternative to car travel and this can be it. Please put all of your effort into making this happen! We know how dangerous and damaging to people's lives and health poor air quality is. Clean Air Colchester is a hub of general and local information about how air quality affects us all right here in Colchester - https://www.cleanaircolchester.org Why Colchester? Our town would be a perfect place to set up this scheme. We have a very active community made up of many groups and individuals who are very concerned about our residents' health as well as our environment and have been campaigning for better air quality and traffic solution for a long time. Colchester Borough Council is also currently implementing a DEFRA-funded awareness raising and behaviour change project (the only one in the country), awarded as a result of the obvious need and interest locally. Should Colchester be chosen for this scheme, the impacts and transformative effects could be recorded through testing and video testimonies recorded by local filmmakers and campaigners to show the positive impact that moving from polluting buses to an electric system can have. As the oldest Roman town in Britain, Colchester has many narrow roads in the town centre. The buildings flank our roads to form a canyon-like environment which can trap air pollutants, meaning that pedestrians, residents and road users end up breathing in dangerous levels of air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and fine particulate matter. There are four areas in Colchester that exceed established air quality objectives. Testing shows air pollution levels in excess of legal limits (40 mg/m3). As the town is developed and spreads at an unprecedented rate, we need clean public transport options to replace the dirty old buses that currently belch out toxic pollution. Please put Colchester forward for this scheme and help us to transform our beautiful town and inspire national change!

There have been numerous reports detailing the link between poverty and lower attainment in numeracy and literacy. The role of a Children’s Laureate is ultimately to engage all children in reading and writing. My proposal would be to take this a stage further in Scotland by identifying those children from low income backgrounds and those with disabilities (physical and mental) and placing more emphasis on reaching children within these groups.

It's part of the very fabric of Leigh on Sea and the community hold many great memories of this amazing building in its heyday. Partially listed and really striking it towers over its neighbouring buildings. Wetherspoons have a number of great and interesting buildings within their chain and hopefully the weight of local support will encourage them to look at saving this iconic part of Leigh on Sea.

We are concerned that action is take to prevent accidents at this junction

On 19th March you and your fellow councillors will be voting on whether to make potentially devastating cuts to the special educational needs budget, which will impact children across the borough. We are calling on you to vote against it. We believe these cuts will prevent schools from properly supporting children with special needs, such as autism, Down’s Syndrome and learning difficulties, and in doing so negatively impact the education of all children in the borough. If these cuts are made, you risk failing in your legal duty under the Children and Families Act 2014 to provide access to education for all children – making the proposals both unethical and likely unlawful. What's more, we believe these cuts are a false economy. Reducing support for children with special educational needs means many will struggle to cope in mainstream education, resulting them falling out of the system completely either through exclusion or school refusal. Parents will then be forced to seek alternative specialist provision, which will cost the council far more in the long run. The proposal is to make a 10% cut to vital top-up funding for children with special educational needs in mainstream schools, as well as cutting the annual budgets of special schools by 1.5%, the maximum allowed by law. Waltham Forest Council will also introduce an unsustainable two-tier system in which new children requiring support face an, as yet, undefined new process. Previous attempts to cut the budget were abandoned after families and schools voiced concerns about how cuts would harm children’s education. Many schools remain uneasy about the cuts, choosing either not to vote or to abstain from voting for them. You should also take note of the high level of community support against cutting the special needs education budget. This is exemplified by the fact that £3,000 for the purposes of taking legal action against the Council was raised through crowdfunding in a matter of days. Furthermore, Waltham Forest SEND Crisis, a grassroots campaign group formed by families, carers and professionals, now has over 300 members. A young person has special educational needs if they have a learning difficulty or disability that calls for special educational provision to be made for them. This can include children with sight or hearing problems, Down's syndrome, learning difficulties, autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, anxiety, depression, as well as children with a physical need requiring additional equipment and support. The extra support children with SEND require is vital to them being able to access an education. You and the other Waltham Forest Councillors must vote against these cuts on 19 March, as they will hurt the children you have a legal duty to support. We implore you to follow the lead of other UK Councils and push back to central government.

To stop the bad practices that have damaged the lives of so many people due to no fault of their own .

Watch the video about the campaign here: https://youtu.be/3EE38TySdSE My name is Leyla Preston. I have three children and I own a parenting magazine called Motherhood Diaries (www.motherhooddiaries.com). In the summer of 2019, I joined a campaign with The Association of Play Industries (API Play) called #PlayMustStay which encourages parents to visit their local parks and playgrounds with their children and keep them off the screens. Cast your mind back to when you were a child. I remember always being outdoors and spending most of my time playing with my friends. I only ever came home when it was time for dinner or sleep. It was such a fun time, and I really enjoyed being outside socialising and burning my energy. As a result, I have such fond memories of playing at my local park/playground, which was just minutes away from me on foot. Nowadays, children have a very different life, most of which is now spent indoors, because of diminishing parks and playgrounds and the constant lure of screens. In 2016, API Play researched into the state of England’s parks and playgrounds and found that local authorities had already closed 347 playgrounds to date. Next year, they plan to further decrease their spend on play facilities by almost £25 million per year, which means more parks/playgrounds will close. And once they’re gone, they’re gone forever! This means a lot of communities cannot get to their local park or playground, and the vicious circle of keeping our children indoors will continue–and how do you occupy your children when you have millions of things to do yourself? Screens! As with everything, a balance is key but this new world is seeing an epidemic of excessive screen time, which has led to childhood obesity, mental health issues and sleep problems because kids are not getting enough exercise and mental stimulation from unstructured outdoor play, which is deemed more beneficial than structured play. Don’t forget that play also encourages social interaction, physical and mental development and, of course, learning through play. We need to take back control and together with our local communities encourage our local government to increase their spend on parks and playgrounds and make them understand that this cut, which they think will save money will cost more in the long run through medical expenses alone. I am not alone in thinking this. Mumsnet surveyed 1,111 parents with children aged two to twelve years old and found that 72% of parents with children who suffer health issues like obesity agree that lack of outdoor play has played a role in their child's health problems. We need more access to parks and playgrounds, but we can’t do this on our own. The government must understand how vitally important our beautiful pockets of nature are to our kids by urging them to stop closing our parks and playgrounds and increase their spend so more parents can get to their local park. Not all parents have access to a car or public transport, so let’s build more parks and playgrounds and have them on our doorstep, so we are not pulled in by the lure of screens. We will be paid back in dividends for the rest of ours and our children’s lives. Please sign the petition so we can bring this issue of not enough parks and playgrounds to the government for review. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. Check out my full article and video on the Winter's Tale campaign here: http://bit.ly/PlayMustStayWinterTale https://youtu.be/3EE38TySdSE Learn more about the campaign here - https://www.api-play.org/news-events/play-must-stay-campaign/ Follow our story on Instagram here - https://www.instagram.com/motherhooddiaries https://www.api-play.org/playmuststay-a-winters-tale/

This is an asset to our community as it provides a place with a large dance hall which can accommodate parties of all kinds, Christmas, Halloween, Birthdays, weddings, engagement, children's soft play parties and more. The hall is also used for afternoon bingo for seniors of the community, Zumba for more energetic, Ball room dancing, old time dancing, brass band practice. It also has two snooker tables which are always used to maximum availability and they are possibly the only two now in this area on which the teams host home games. This is also said for the pool table which is fully utilised. Dart board, multi screen TV's for watching sport, this has Sky channels so those of us who cant afford Sky watch our sport here. Weekends there are card schools run by older members who are keeping the old traditions alive. Rooms used for charity meetings . below is a line copied from Vale Canadian web site. Vision To be the number one global natural resources company in creating long term value, through excellence and passion for people and the planet Values 1. Life matters most 2 . Value our people 3. Prize our planet 4. Do what is right 5. Improve together 6. Make it happen I hope this will overturn the decision to close , and DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR OUR COMMUNITY. Make it happen. Please. Even if is better to rename it. Clydach Community pub.

This is important as the “unskilled” jobs that will suffer the most from this new policy actually require large amounts of skill and hard work from the dedicated people that undertake them. Hospitality for example is one of the biggest employers in the UK but is currently in the middle of a staff shortage despite being one of the largest employers of immigrants. The “unskilled” foreign workers that this government wants to turn away are what keeps this country going and are a strong fabric of our society!