Green perspectives on Stockwood and Bristol. Mostly.

Sunday 13 March 2011

Petition Power

Locally, the 'Big Save our Parks Petition' raised some 7,000 signatures, twice the target, so the full council is obliged to debate it.

It calls for the decisions about selling Open Spaces to be devolved to the Neighbourhood Partnerships instead of the Cabinet, and it'll be debated on March 22nd.

The meeting starts at 6 with the 'Public Forum', i.e. statements and questions from the public (I've got a couple of questions tabled myself, but they're about transport). Statements can be submitted up to noon the day before (to democratic.services@bristol.gov.uk ), and I hope there'll be plenty.
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Another highly successful petition was the '38 degrees' bid to stop government proposals to sell off the nations forests. It attracted over half-a-million online signatures - and the government backed down. For now, at least!

Now, 38 degrees are back with another one. This one's about the NHS 'reforms' that even the LibDems are rebelling against. The wording is:

Our NHS is precious - we won't forgive you if you ruin it.
Don’t break up our health service and hand it to private healthcare companies
  • Listen to the the real experts - doctors, nurses and patients - when they give warnings about these plans
  • Don't rush through massive changes without testing them properly first
  • Protect patient care - don't cut beds, wards, doctors or nurses

It's reached 80,000 signatures in its first week. You can sign it at
www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/Protect_our_NHS_Petition#petition

Another linked petition "Blood Money" aims to stop the sale of the National Blood Service (yes, honest!) to a private, profit-driven contractor. It's running at around 34,000 signatures as I write. You can add more here

Come to think of it, it could be sold off to one of the big US 'Defense' contractors like the firm that's doing the UK Census. Yes, Lockheed Martin, manufacturers of cluster bombs and Trident missiles.

Blood Money indeed.

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