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Petition Tag - warwickshire
1. Create a Tongue-Tie Service for South Warwickshire 
We are a group of parents in South Warwickshire with children who have had issues with tongue-ties. You can contact us via our Support Group on Facebook:
http://tinyurl.com/tongue-tie-warwickshire
Please note this petition can only be signed by those who live in the Warwick District Council and the Stratford-On-Avon District Council areas.
For further information on Tongue-Tie, here is a link to NHS Choices and a link to the NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) guidelines:
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/tongue-tie/Pages/Introduction.aspx
http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/live/11180/31411/31411.pdf
2. Overcoming Hurdles Campaign
We are taking part in The Challenge, part of which asks us to make a campaign about something we are passionate about and we then created Overcome Hurdles.
Our aim is to get the council to fund for more sporting facilities for the physically and mentally impaired in the Warwickshire area.
3. Save Connect2 Kenilworth & the Coventry Road Bridge for walkers and cyclists
There is a major threat to the completion of the Connect2 Kenilworth project. Please take action immediately by adding your name to this petition now to express your strong support for the scheme.
The project is one of 79 projects across the UK that won a national vote for £50 million Big Lottery funding for Sustrans in 2007. It will create a safe, mostly off-road, walking and cycling route linking the town of Kenilworth with the University of Warwick campus, and upgrade the existing Greenway route through Burton Green to Berkeswell Station. A key feature of the scheme is a new bridge at Crackley to provide a safe crossing for pedestrians and cyclists over the busy A429 Coventry Road. It will encourage more commuting to work by bicycle or on foot, and be a significant boost for fitness and leisure facilities in the area.
It is one of 5 Connect2 schemes selected by the University of Oxford for a major 5-year study of how such schemes impact on public perceptions/attitudes and commuting habits. As part of this, initial survey requests have been sent out to 7,500 households in the local area.
On 9th September 2010 the Warwickshire County Council Cabinet (WCC) reviewed its capital expenditure programme in the light of severe spending pressures and some government grant funding cancellations. Buried in the mass of detail in the Cabinet papers were cuts to the Connect2 Kenilworth project that would have killed it. Thanks to a spontaneous public outcry the Cabinet deferred any final decision on Connect2 Kenilworth, but the project remains under severe threat.
The Cabinet appears prepared to abandon the scheme, wasting much of what it has already spent on the scheme and spurning generous Sustrans/Big Lottery funding, just to shave £270,000 out of its capital expenditure programme of nearly £600 million. This is a drop in the ocean, especially compared with projects like the Rugby Western Relief Road that is many millions of pounds over budget.
WCC plans to cut all its funding of the project from now on, assuming that the Sustrans/Big Lottery funding of £300,000 will still be forthcoming and can be spent on a more limited version of the project (without the bridge). This assumption is totally incorrect, because Sustrans have confirmed that their funding is dependent on the scheme being completed as planned, with the bridge as the centrepiece.
The WCC/Sustrans/Big Lottery agreement was signed in November 2008, and the two town sections of the route have nearly been completed. Planning permission for the bridge has been obtained, and WCC are ready to go out to tender for its construction. Planning permission for the route alongside Kenilworth Common is currently being sought. There is agreement on the route across the fields from the Greenway to the University.
Just as this critical stage has been reached, with much of the hard work done, the Connect2 Kenilworth project team were told to stop.
From today, of the remaining cost to complete the scheme as planned (with the bridge), more than half is already promised by Sustrans, and the remainder required from WCC.
There is a concern in the WCC Cabinet that going ahead with a £400,000 bridge in these straitened times would look like an extravagance to the general public. After all, it's only for cyclists isn't it? (No it isn't - it's for pedestrians and disabled users as well, and for horse riders on other parts of the route). There seems to be a desire to complete the rest of the scheme, but why can't we settle for a toucan crossing over the Coventry Road instead?
The irony is that because Sustrans remain acutely keen for WCC to complete the scheme with the bridge as planned, they have offered extra help, but made it clear that a scheme without the bridge would no longer attract anything like the same amount of Lottery funding. In reality, if WCC wants to complete the scheme rather than leave the route part built, it will cost no more to WCC to build it with the bridge than without it!
Supporters of the scheme might think such a choice was a no-brainer, but these are difficult times and going to get worse, so public opinion cannot be ignored. The purpose of this petition is therefore to demonstrate unambiguously the continued strength of public support for the scheme that they voted for locally in their thousands at the end of 2007.
A massive response to the petition will force the WCC Cabinet to reconsider. Under new legislation a petition of 1,000 signatures can be presented to the full Council, 1,200 signatures can require a debate by the Warwick Area Committee, while 5,000 signatures can require a debate by the full Council.
Please give this petition all the support you can.
On 11th March 2010, the outgoing Labour Government announced plans for a High Speed Rail (HS2) link from London Euston to Birmingham. It was reported then that it would cost £11bn, but that figure was 6 years out of date. On the same day you could have got information from the Department for Transport which put the cost at £17.4bn or from HS2 Ltd, which put it at £25.5bn, or 2.8% of our generational national debt (based on a total national debt estimate of £916.6bn).
Despite all the cuts we will face as a nation, and the fact the new Prime Minister has stated that "things are worse than we thought", the Coalition Government still want to go ahead with HS2 and even extend it to link with Heathrow and HS1, meaning it will cost even more than the current £160 million per mile.
The business case assumes three times the number of passengers carried by the West Coast Mainline (45,000 increasing to 146,000 per day), despite there has been no increase in long-distance train travel since 1995 and the only increase has been on discounted fares.
This also ignores the fact that in 15 years time when it is scheduled to be ready, people will need to travel for work less, as who knows what we will have in terms of internet connections and video conferencing.
When announcing the sale of HS1 in Kent, Secretary of State for Transport, Philip Hammond said; "High Speed One is a national success story." This is despite the fact half the trains have been cut to stem the losses. HS1, like HS2, was meant to be great for business and was going to carry 21 million people per year. It has managed 7.5 million. HS1 is being sold for £1.5bn, about a quarter of the £5.8bn it cost to build.
Just to make sure people will use it, as in Kent, current services will be cut. Commuters from Coventry currently enjoy three London trains per hour. If HS2 goes ahead, the two express trains will be cut, meaning even if people go up to Birmingham International to use HS2, it will take them longer to reach their destination.
Supporters and politicians are quick to say HS2 will be good for the environment, however when you read the actual plans, you find out this is not the case. HS1 passengers are responsible for 35% more CO2 emissions than car passengers, but HS2 will go faster, so the CO2 emissions will be higher, but we don't know how much higher as there is no passenger train in the world that travels at the proposed 250mph to compare it with. It will also lead to more flights, not less, as Birmingham International Airport is being extended and it will be about 40 minutes on the train from Euston and now will be directly linked to Heathrow. Birmingham will provide Heathrows third runway.
The HS2 report admits that the plan may lead to an increase in CO2 emissions, but in those calculations they ignore the seven years of construction and roadworks that will mean and the fact that in some places a 75 metre (83 yard) wide strip of 'green stuff' will be turned to concrete, due to 25 metre 'no vegetation zones' on either side.
Yes, 75 metres! The pitch at Wembley is only 69 metres wide. The plans state that where the trains will travel at top speed, the tracks will have to be 25 metres to stop passing trains blowing each other other the rails, and there will have to be a 25 metre 'No vegetation zone' on either side.
HS2 will cut right through the heart of the countryside at a noise level of 95 decibels. The noise level at which sustained exposure could cause permanent hearing damage is 90-95dB. It's not planned to go next to motorways (existing transport corridors) as that would cost even more and to travel at 'high speed', the line has to be very straight.
This will create massive social damage to towns and villages along the line. While the government say it is 'good for business', HS1 and the M6 Toll were justified for the same reasons, but have not devilvered the promised benefits. All they have delivered is large losses. The business case takes no account of businesses which will be destroyed, and businesses will only get land value when it comes to compensation.
HS2 will of course lead to the filling in of greenbelts, as once they are blighted by the fact upto 40 trains per hour (1 per 90 seconds), a quarter of a mile long, going past at 250mph, creating 95dB, it's not going to be a green belt any more. There is also the chance of extensive development around the Birmingham International station as a result of this plan.
The thing is with HS2 is it sounds like a good idea, but when you look at the details, you find that most parts of the plans are bad, unjustified ideas. The main thing is that it is going to be a collosal waste of money that will help bankrupt the country even more than it is now.
Just think of what would not need to be cut if it wasn't for committing to at least 25.5 billion pounds on one train line, connecting two cities, when there are already two train lines doing the job.
5. Bedworth independent from Nuneaton
Nuneaton has been combined with Bedworth since 1974, the people of Bedworth for the most part do not want it to be this way any longer. Ever since Nuneaton and Bedworth became one council, Bedwoth has got worse and worse.
Currently there are several shops closed in Bedworth, there are rather a lot of charity shops and not a lot else. Without Nuneaton, Bedworth will most likely go back to being one of the top councils in the country.
6. Save the Masts at the transmitter site in Warwickshire
An historic trasmitter site in Warwickshire, England has been decommissioned by British telecom (O2). After some 76 years in operation the land is to be sold off for probably housing. We are asking that one of the buildings be saved and used as a museum. We would also like to see one of the huge 820ft masts preserved.