Boreham Parish Council have announced they are going to charge Small Steps Pre-school to continue to use the small children's play area at the back of the village hall. They say that even though Small Steps is a registered charity they must contribute towards the upkeep of the area as they are a business. Small Steps has used the playground for over 10 years and have always allowed others to use the playground at all times. I believe that it is vital for children's health and wellbeing to spend time outdoors exercising.

It is vital that the Social Club is retained for community use and not sold out from underneath the community by trustees who appear to have no concern for the interests or well-being of local people. A community led association, providing much needed affordable facilities and services to the community would bring considerable benefit to the local community.

It is important to Mick as he enjoys his job & the interaction that it gives him with the local community. It is important more now than ever as he has just lost his wife & this helps him to move on a little bit & keep himself busy. But it is important to the community especially the parents & their children who cross with him to get to school. He ensures their safety on which is a dangerous junction otherwise. People are being put at risk while he is not there & the children miss seeing him as it is part of their daily routine

Imagine you’re employed by an outsourcing giant who paid their shareholders more money in the last five years than you could dream of, while you struggle to make ends meet. You clean buildings owned by Network Rail, a publicly owned company, and you learn that your colleagues who clean their stations will now get the Living Wage, but you won’t, even though some them work in the same building as you. You raise this with your manager, who just laughs at you. This is not just a story, this is happening to hard-working cleaning staff working for our railways now. In October this year, RMT cleaners who work for outsourcing giant Mitie and clean Network Rail stations won the Real Living Wage after a massive national campaign involving a 38 Degrees petition signed by 82,000 people and motions in the Westminster and Scottish parliaments. You’d think that Mitie and Network Rail would have got the point and made sure that they pay the Real living Wage to all their staff. Yet scandalously, both Mitie and Network Rail are still exploiting low paid cleaners. Cleaners employed by Mitie but working on Network Rail’s Estates contract, cleaning administrative buildings, maintenance depots and control centres are still being paid poverty wages. Some of them work in the same buildings as colleagues who are now being paid the Living Wage and our members report managers laughing at them for thinking they should be paid the same. This is outrageous. Mitie is a massive company which made £33 million in profit in just the last six months and has passed on £177 million to its shareholders in the last five years. Its CEO Phil Bentley took home £2.2 million last year. It would take one of Phil’s cleaners 176 years work to earn the same amount as he made in 12 months. Network Rail know that they’re in the wrong and say they’re reviewing their contracts, but that’s not good enough. Network Rail and Mitie need to fix this now. EVERYONE who works for Network Rail through a contract with Mitie should be paid at least the Living Wage, now.

Slavery did not end with abolition in the 19th century. Instead, it changed its forms and continues to harm people in every country in the world. Including here in the UK. Currently, the UK Modern Slavery Act requires companies with a turnover of £36 million to release annual statements of their anti-slavery efforts. And hotels and the hospitality industry often don't do enough to stop the exploitation of workers, and in the worst cases, modern slavery. But some of these hotel companies are not producing these statements - even though they have to by law. This means that right now we don't know if they are failing to address the specific risks of modern slavery in their direct operations and supply chains, because they are not releasing an annual report. These hotel chains must reflect on the specific risks facing the sector: they must do the bare minimum and take slavery seriously. *These groups have not complied as of 22 November 2019

At the moment, anyone wishing to convert existing office buildings do not have to go through the procedure of getting planning permission from local authorities. This means that more and more flats are being built which do not meet the standard requirement for living. Some of these flats have been described as a “human warehouse” with residents living space measuring as small as 13ft by 13ft. Living in such a small area can cause people’s physical and mental wellbeing deteriorating. There is no excuse for developments like this. We are calling on the Government to change the rules around office to flat conversions and make developers seek planning permission. https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Minimum_space_standards

Around nine million people are unable to have their say on who represents them - because they’re not registered to vote. That means millions of people – from young people to BME groups and those on low-incomes - won’t get a say in the future of their country, making our democracy more unequal and unfair. Let’s make sure this never happens again by moving towards a system that works for all of us. After this election, we call on all parties to commit to ‘automatic registration’ for all future elections in the UK. It's time to bring in the missing millions at last.

As a community we should be objecting to this proposal due to several factors which include - the safety of the children who play in this area with the increase in vehicular movement - noise and pollution next to the 3g sports facilities and skate park - the loss of green space used for public events such as the shows, circus and fireworks etc all which bring the community together. - increase in traffic flow over the Victoria bridge causing more congestion - potential of traffic self diverting causing a rat race through the residential area - adding to the surface water run off in an area already susceptible to flooding - loss of green space which is beneficial to mental health and well being - potential damage to the surrounding trees and wildlife So please as a community help us fight against this proposal and save the green space at whittinghame drive used by many, from children to families and dog walkers.

As a nation we consume approximately 6 billion crisp packets every year with the vast majority of those being made from plastic. They don’t rot. That's an awful lot of landfill and poison for the environment. Crisp packets have been found on beaches intact more than 33 years later. Imagine during that time the effect on wildlife and the environment. While Walkers committed to the UK’s first crisp packet recycling scheme back in 2018 following a huge campaign by 38 Degrees, it’s simply not good enough with only 0.38% of all Walkers crisp packets being recycled in that time. It’s time they looked towards a better solution. Ideally Walkers should stop producing waste plastic, but until they change their production methods, Walkers should introduce thousands more recycling points in more convenient places such as supermarkets and train stations.

Why allow schools to destroy the environment to save a little bit of money? Disposable plastic cups, cutlery and plates are used in schools for the mere fact that they reduce costs by less than 20%. None of these are recyclable. Single-use plastics are used only once before they are thrown away or recycled. Schools use so many of these - mostly not for educational purposes either such plastic drinks bottles and disposable cutlery. Why is the use of plastic bottles so prevalent in UK schools? The world is currently producing nearly 300 million tons of plastic each year - a significant amount of which will end up in the oceans killing innocent animals and destroying our planet. We only have one Earth. Unfortunately, although plastic is a useful product, many of these products are created for single-use - with an estimated 50 per cent of plastic used once and thrown away. Laminating documents is unnecessary and only used to improve the look of displays but display boards are replaced, on average, every 3 months. Why allow schools to destroy the environment to save a little bit of money? Disposable plastic cups, cutlery and plates are used in schools for the mere fact that they reduce costs by less than 20%. There are many ways school can find alternatives. Schools should be educating the youth into caring for the environment instead of destroying it with preventable overuse of single use plastics. So why aren't they?

Malnutrition causes the NHS £1 billion per annum each year as prior to 2014, this disorder was not recognised by the DSM-5. This meant sufferers have learned to live on diets unsuitable for long term and as a result are nutritionally deficient which can cause an alarming amount of problems such as diabetes, lowered cognitive function, necrosis, and even death considering eating disorders have abundant fatalities each year, as every sixty two minutes, a person dies from an eating disorder.

Seaham is a flourishing town with an increasing number of people moving into and visiting the area and requires a reliable train service for work or leisure purposes for the local community . Direct access transport services from Seaham to popular destinations such as Newcastle and the Metro Centre are limited and the train service is therefore vital and well used. However trains are limited to one an hour and two carriages, this is inadequate to meet local demand resulting in customers waiting for hours trying to get a train as they are often full.