We have been working hard to help generate support for this important cause for both recreational users and marine life. We would love if you could please read, sign and share our petition, which achieved 1,000 signatures in its first four days.
Please support our campaign film
#WardieBay4BathingWater
We are also making a film, working with videographer, Carlos Hernan. We would like to pay him a professional fee for supporting us in these difficult times. Please click here for information.
Almost200,000 people have signed a Electoral Reform Society petition calling for the unelected House of Lords to be overhauled.
The Prime Minister is set to pack the House of Lords with yet more unelected peers. And discontent is growing.
As the Mirror reported this week, anger is rising at Boris Johnson’s plan to stuff the chamber with appointees.
There is concern across the spectrum. The Conservative-leaning Spectator points out: “It is no credit to British democracy that we have the second largest legislative chamber in the world. The only one larger than the 792-strong House of Lords is the 2,980-member Chinese National People’s Congress.
“In the coming days the House of Lords will grow even bigger as the Prime Minister announces another batch of peerages. We can expect a bad-tempered reaction if, as expected, a slew of Brexit campaigners such as Ian Botham are included while former speaker John Bercow is left out.”
The magazine cites ERS research showing that: “It is genuine participation that matters, and in this some have a lamentable record. The Electoral Reform Society found that in the 2016/17 session, 115 peers failed to speak in a single debate — and yet they claimed £1.3 million in expenses between them.”
Even the Lords themselves are getting restless. The PM’s peers list will reverse years of attempts to check numbers, according to the Lord Speaker, as we revealed this week.
Voters are not happy about the bloated and unelected state of the House of Lords.
Nearly 200,000 have signed a petition calling for an overhaul – for it to be scrapped and replaced with a proportionally-elected second chamber that is fit for purpose: rather than a private member’s club for the PM’s pals.
Sign it here – and let’s get this to 200,000 signatures.
Commenting on the 36 new appointments to the House of Lords, Darren Hughes, Chief Executive of the UK’s leading democracy campaign group the ERS said:
“Based on the average claim of a peer, the 36 new peers are likely to cost around £1.1m a year in expenses from the taxpayer [2].
“By appointing a host of ex-MPs, party loyalists and his own brother, the PM is inviting total derision. That he can get away with it shows what a private member’s club this house is.
“The Lords was already the largest second chamber in the world. There are now over 800 unelected peers, voting on our laws for life.
“Is packing the Lords with party loyalists really a priority, as a pandemic rages across the world? This move is an absolute insult to voters. This is making a mockery of democracy.
“Today marks a nail in the coffin for the idea that the Lords is some kind of independent chamber of experts. It is a house of cronies and party loyalists – we need to see it scrapped and replaced with a fair-elected chamber that’s fit for a democracy.”
Among the new Peers are Theresa May’s husband Philip – for political service (!), Boris Johnson’s brother Joseph and former Tory party leader in Scotland Ruth Davidson.
THE HOUSE of LORDS SPEAKER IS REVOLTING!
Lord Fowler (above, second left) comments following the government’s announcement of 36 new members of the House of Lords on Friday 31 July:
Lord Fowler, the Lord Speaker, said: “This list of new Peers marks a lost opportunity to reduce numbers in the House of Lords. The result will be that the House will soon be nearly 830 strong – almost 200 greater than the House of Commons.
“That is a massive policy u-turn.
It was only two years ago that the then Prime Minister, Mrs May, pledged herself to a policy of “restraint” in the number of new appointments. It was the first time that any Prime Minister had made such a pledge.
“This followed a report by a special Lord Speaker’s committee chaired by Lord (Terry) Burns proposing that numbers should be reduced to 600. This was debated by the Lords itself with over 90 speakers, commanding overwhelming support.
“The big opportunity was for the present Government to take forward this movement for reform. I emphasise that this is not a matter of personalities. It is a question of numbers and the abandonment of an established policy to reduce the size of the House.
“It is also a vast pity that the list has been announced within the first few days of the summer recess when neither House is sitting, and the Government cannot be challenged in Parliament.”
Our noble Lords and Ladies receive ‘allowances’ of £323 PER DAY just for turning up – nice ‘work’ if you can get it!
Even during the pandemic, when the House of Lords isn’t sitting, our hard-working peers are trousering £162 per day when they participate in debates or vote from the comfort of home – no matter how minimal their contribution may be.
By way of comparison, a single person under 25 on Universal Credit will receive a standard payment of £342.72p PER MONTH.
Shopworkers’ trade union Usdaw has launched a petition on the Scottish Parliament website that calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to launch a consultation on implementing legislation already in place to ban most large shops from opening on New Year’s Day.
Sign the petition at: www.parliament.scot/GettingInvolved/Petitions/newyearsday
The Christmas Day and New Year’s Day Trading Act (Scotland) Act 2007 prohibits trading in most large shops on Christmas Day and gave powers to the Scottish Government to stop the opening of those shops on New Year’s Day as well, which has never been enacted.
An extensive Usdaw survey of over 1,000 Scottish retail staff, found that:
98% say that stores should be shut on New Year’s Day
Three quarters feel they spend too little time with friends and family over New Year.
Only 4% are happy to work on New Year’s Day or 2 January.
The full survey results can be viewed at: www.usdaw.org.uk/NYDSurvey
Stewart Forrest, Usdaw’s Scottish Divisional Officer, said: “Usdaw’s survey clearly demonstrates the strength of feeling among our members, so we are calling on them, along with all shopworkers and the public, to support this petition for a decent break at New Year after the busy Christmas period.
“Retail staff work incredibly hard all year round, but it is particularly busy and stressful throughout December. So they deserve to be able to spend time with family and friends, only 4% of Scottish retail workers are happy to work on New Year’s Day.”
Paddy Lillis, Usdaw General Secretary, said: “Hogmanay and New Year is a special holiday in Scotland, but this is not reflected in the experience of many retail workers.
“Under the Christmas Day and New Year’s Day Trading (Scotland) Act 2007, Scottish Ministers may, by statutory instrument, ban large shops from opening on New Year’s Day, subject to consultation.
“On behalf of Scotland’s retail workers, we are urging the Scottish Government to open that consultation and for MSPs to listen to shopworkers concerns about their work/life balance.”
What shopworkers say:
You’re tired from working and don’t really relax or enjoy the limited time you get with them. Then you start all over again working New Year’s Day too!!!
If, like myself, you have to work Boxing Day and New Year’s Day – it should be paid at least time and half.
As a store manager I have had to work Christmas and New Year. A lot of hard work goes into the weeks leading up. By Christmas Day you are exhausted and then back to work on Boxing Day. This year I also have to work New Year’s Eve, New Years Day and on the second.
I am not happy working till 1930 on both Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. By 4pm our store was fairly empty.
Finishing times on Christmas Eve and Hogmanay are creeping up later, which has a severe impact on family life for retail workers.
Thank you all so much for all the support you’ve offered since news broke that Pilton Community Health Project will be forced to close in March next year as a result of disinvestment from The City of Edinburgh Council and NHS Lothian.
Please sign and widely share our petition to help #SavePCHP!
We believe that the decision taken by the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board to close the project is unfair to people in our community. In our petition, we ask that the City of Edinburgh Council and NHS Lothian secure project funding for one year to enable us to find new ways of sustaining the life-changing work that we do in our community.
The pressure on Edinburgh Council to reverse its decision to close Leith Registrars Office increased today as it was revealed that a public petition against it gathered nearly 3,000 signatures in just one day. The petition, started by local MP Deidre Brock, calls on the council to keep the office open and says that it was part of the settlement Leith got from Edinburgh when the two merged in 1920.Continue reading “Civic vandalism”: Brock urges Leithers to sign up to save Registrars Office
Grim New Year: charity’s tenants fight Lorne Street eviction
A social media campaign and local politicians are supporting a petition to save over 100 families from eviction after a charity put their Lorne Street homes up for sale. Tenants have set up Lorne Community Association (LCA) and hope to transfer their houses into a new community-run housing co-operative – but they have only THREE MONTHS to prove their plan stacks up.
The Agnes Hunter Trust says the sale of the Leith homes is a more effective way of maintaining income that can then be given out as grants to the local community.
The trust was set up in 1954 by Miss Agnes Hunter with the properties built by her father in the 1870s and they have since been let by the Hunter family to the people of Leith. The properties and the rental income received are then used by the Hunter Trust to support good works and worthy causes in the Leith community and beyond – these include support for people suffering from arthritis and other health conditions and ‘assistance with the education and training of disadvantaged people’.
Two hundred tenants have been issued letters of four months statutory notice to quit and find alternative rented accommodation, but campaigners have appealed for a year to turn the homes into a local community-run housing co-operative.
Petitioner Melanie Weigang said: “Over 200 tenants in Lorne Street, Leith are facing eviction. We ask that City of Edinburgh Council does everything possible within its powers, including financial support, to support the tenants to save the community and to set up a housing co-op.”
The Trust has confirmed it will resume the process of evicting tenants in January if the trustees cannot be persuaded that the LCA can buy the flats at market rates.
The first evictees will be those who have lived in a property for less than four years.
Many of the old tenement properties are understood to be in a poor state and require modernisation, but tenant Lucy Dey said she and many others have nowhere else to go. She said: “We’re not asking for much – just a year. By then we’re confident we’d have a co-op and the homes will remain in the community.”
The LCA petition to the City of Edinburgh Council says:
Over 200 tenants in Lorne Street, Leith are facing eviction by the Agnes Hunter Trust, a charitable trust that owns over 100 flats in Lorne Street. The trust was established in 1954 by Miss Agnes Hunter. The properties were built by her father in the 1870ties and since then have been let by the Hunter family to the people of Leith. Miss Hunter herself lived for many years in Leith until she died in 1954.
The properties and the income received from its tenants have always built the core of the charity. The trust informed all tenants on 11 June 2015 that it decided to dispose all of its properties within 3-4 years to re-invest the income from the sale of the properties and with a view to increasing the amount available for distribution to charities.
The tenants with the support from MP Deidre Brock, MSP Malcolm Chisholm, Councillors Nick Gardner, Angela Blacklock and Cammy Day asked the trustees to put the evictions on hold for 12 months in order to set up a housing co-op with the support of the council but that request was denied and only a 4 months period was granted which will only be extended if we can agree with the landlord on a valuation basis for the property portfolio by then.
We kindly ask that the City of Edinburgh Council does everything possible within its powers, including financial support, to support the tenants to save the community and to set up a housing co-op.
As word spreads about their plight LCA’s organisers are confident that more and more people will support their plan – they delighted with response to their petition so far.
