Petition Tag - essex

RASH (Residents Against Skip Hire) was formed in 2007 to organise opposition to Colchester Skip Hire’s expansion plans at the site on Packards Lane. At the request of our mailing list we expanded our activities to oppose the Birch Airfield Composting Services proposal for green waste composting at Fairfields Farm.

Essex County Council has sent out notification of Birch Airfield Services Ltd resubmission of their Planning Application for the land at Fairfields Farm on Fordham Road, which appears much the same as the previous application which was refused. The application is described as “change of use of land from agricultural to composting of green waste”.

Further details are at the Colchester Borough Council website.

The location, operating hours, size of the working area and buildings remain very much the same. Also the noise, light and prevailing winds seem not to have been considered, nor their adverse effects on local residents. The size of the proposal will allow for a capacity of what was originally proposed and refused. It is likely that if this proposal is accepted the amount of lorry movements will increase as it has with Colchester Skip Hire.

It is also worth mentioning that Birch Airfield Composting started off with a similar facility at Birch Airfield; they are now proposing to build a covered facility with a microgeneration plant. This application is being strongly resisted by the local residents.

Some summary details about the Application:

Development
• Change of use of land for a 2.75 hectare site (6.8 acres).
  
• Site to be enclosed by 2.4 meter green chain mesh fence.
  
• Installation of a weighbridge.
  
• Installation of a building for offices and staff amenities.
  
• Creation of a pond for collection of liquid.
  
• Moving of Public Right of Way.

Operations

• Shredding and maturation of green waste.
  
• To bring in up to 8,000 tonnes of green waste each year primarily from Colchester Borough Council’s Shrub End depot.
  
• Green waste to be put through an industrial shredder.
  
• Composted material put through trammel screener.
  
• The resultant noise created by this machinery is not described in detail.
  
• Composted material created to be used on surrounding farmland.
  
• Site operating hours 07.30 to 17.30 Monday to Friday, 08.00 to 16.00 Saturdays and 08.00 to 13.00 on Sundays.

Traffic

• Up to 6 HGV vehicle movements per day, so up to 42 per week.
  
• Articulated lorries and Roro trains (lorries carrying several roll on / roll off waste containers).
  
• Traffic to come from A1124 through the villages of Eight Ash Green and Fordham.

View petition

Essex County Council has announced to parents that it is to make it's school bus escorts redundant from Easter 2011.

It's decision raises many safety concerns with the County's parents and we are urging them to reverse their decision.

View petition

“Child fares are available for children aged 5 to under 16 in all Arriva Southern Counties areas except Southend”. In Southend child fares are available to children aged 5 to under 14 unless they have a Fairsaver Card which entitles 14 and 15-year olds to child rate travel”
(Quote from Arriva website: Terms of Travel)

We want to change this!

View petition

The Norwich to Ninety campaign aims to persuade the Department for Transport to include a range of improvements to the Norwich to London line as part of the new Greater Anglia franchise specification.

Whatever is included in the new franchise will be the service that is delivered for rail passengers on the Great Eastern Main Line for the next decade.

We want:

• A ninety-minute journey time between Norwich and London.

• More reliable services, improving upon recent performance.

• New Inter-City style trains including features such as wi-fi.

• More train capacity - but without down-grading the Norwich to London service to commuter-style carriages.

• Station improvements, including better car parking and facilities for waiting passengers.

We will also be campaigning for other improvements including:
• Cleanliness and comfort
• On-board facilities such as wi-fi and catering
• Measures introduced to reduce engineering disruption
• Improvements to rural lines

The Norwich to London line is a crucial economic artery, linking Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex to London. Investment is essential to bring it into the 21st century and to allow these counties to remain competitive.

For example the 115 mile journey from London to Norwich takes around 1hr 50mins, yet Birmingham (118 miles) can be reached in only 1hr 23 mins and York (180 miles) in 1 hr 59mins.

A shorter journey time in high quality trains would encourage more people to switch from cars to the railway, reducing road congestion and carbon emissions, as well as improving the economic competitiveness of the city and county.

Please sign the petition and encourage others to do so and ensure the Department for Transport listens to commuters and train users in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex and train users in general to ensure the new franchise includes the much needed improvements.

Follow us on twitter and have your say on the trains
http://twitter.com/Norwichin90

View petition

SKIPP Mission Statement:

To facilitate the return of the artefacts discovered within the burial chamber of the Prittlewell Saxon King plus the other previous and future finds to a site in close proximity to the discovery site so as not to break the ‘connection between grave goods and burial chamber’.

In order to achieve this SKIPP proposes the construction of a ‘Saxon Hall Style’ Museum on the Priory Park ‘Brownfield’ site currently occupied by the Council Works Depot. We believe this will be, cost effective, achievable in a relatively short time scale and create an icon internationally significant museum for Southend to be proud of.

View petition

At the beginning of the current academic year the University of Essex outsourced the clamping of vehicles at the Colchester campus to a private company

View petition

Havering Council have organised a Public Inquiry into a Village Green application (VH/1/08) for the common land on the junction of Abbs Cross Lane and Hornchurch Road in the centre of Hornchurch, Essex.

We the undersigned, as local residents and users of this land, support this application and would ask the Inspector to recommend approval.

View petition

The UK police now have more DNA samples than any other country. Over 7% of the UK's population is on the National DNA database.

Although the assumption is that by holding the DNA profiles of more individuals on the database, more crimes will be solved, there is no evidence to support this. However, evidence of abuse of the information held on the police database is increasing, including its use for controversial genetic research without consent.

In Scotland the law is different and DNA cannot be kept permanently from innocent people.

About a million people who have not been convicted of any offence, including at least a hundred thousand children, are now on the National DNA Database.

Keeping innocent people's DNA profiles on a Database permanently is an infringement of fundamental human rights.

View petition

In Wickford, Essex, 100 acres of green land to the north of Station Avenue and extending up to Downham Road - an area known locally as “Barn Hall” - are under threat of development from Gleesons and the Glendale Group.

Barn Hall” is an area of long established meadows, ponds, hedges and copses. It is very rich in wild life and wild flowers. The recorded animals there include bats, badgers, foxes, rabbits, squirrels, adders, grass snakes, lizards and slow worms. At the time of writing the results of a survey for great crested newts are awaited.

There are many recorded species of birds, including cuckoos, sparrow hawks, barn owls, kestrels, green spotted woodpeckers, grey herons, nightingales and jays. In addition, there are many butterflies and moths, as well as a rich variety of other insects including the argiope bruennichia or “wasp spider“.

The developers bought this agricultural land prior to 1998 from the then Ministry of Agriculture, speculating that it would sooner or later be designated as building land. In due course, the 1998 Basildon District Local Plan designated the land for future development after 2001. However, the Replacement Local Plan of 2005 put this land back into the “Green Belt”. Unfortunately, due to a chaotic mix-up between Basildon District Council and central government, the 2005 Plan had to be scrapped - leaving the previous Local Plan effectively in place and the land in danger of being developed.

The land from Station Avenue in the south to Downham Road in the north has recently been surveyed by the developers, prior to them submitting a planning application. The fear is that they could build up to 1,500 houses - not only destroying this beautiful area of open countryside but adding to the traffic congestion (particularly in the Station Avenue area) and the infrastructure problems (such as the lack of doctors and dentists, pressure on electricity and water supplies etc) in Wickford.

We are not opposed to (already planned) developments to meet the future housing needs of a growing population and more single households. Over the last 20-30 years Wickford has welcomed thousands of new residents, particularly in the new estates of the Wick and Shotgate; and there are plans for building further new homes on the site of nearby Runwell Hospital. Basildon District Council has also recently approved an exciting and ambitious Masterplan to regenerate Wickford town centre and incorporate hundreds of new dwellings alongside new shops, restaurants and amenities for the whole community. By these and other developments within urban areas on ’brown-field’ sites, the Council is currently meeting all the exacting targets set by central government to meet future housing needs - without any need to allow developers to destroy our lovely, green countryside for ever.

So, please help us save this countryside! Sign our petition!

And, please, visit our above website for more information and updates.

View petition

July 12, 2006

In basildon Essex, land in Dry Street and adjacent to the wild life park of Langdon Hills and One Tree Hill is under threat of development from English Partnerships, a government regeneration agency which was asked to put foward land for housing.

English Partnerships wish to build 1,300 dwellings on the site, plus a school, shops, health facilites, offices, & pub.

The area is undoubtedly very rich in wildlife, and its animals include badgers, foxes, bats, rabbits, hare, stoat, weasels, squirrels, adders, grass snakes, lizards, slow worms, great crested newts and other amphibians. Many wild flower species occur, including some that are associated with long-established meadows, like adder's tongue fern, hay rattle and some orchids. The hedges are rich and varied, and they support much wildlife.

A great variety of bird species has been recorded, including summer and winter migrants - from cuckoos and warblers in summer to fieldfares and waxwings in winter, with rare passage migrants turning up on occasion. Winter flocks of lapwings, migrant thrushes and gulls congregate on one of the middle meadows, where earthworms and soil invertebrates must clearly be very numerous. Sparrowhawks, kestrels, owls and woodpeckers (green and spotted) frequent the site, and the marshy areas attract snipe and other species. There are many butterflies and moths, as well as a rich variety of other insects, some of which are so rare that they are on the Red Data Book list.

The land has been under the threat of development for a number of years. Following an earlier 4000 signature petition from all areas presented to Basildon Council the new Master Plan designated this area as open space to eventually be permanently protected as "Green Belt".

However, apparently there were legal issues that needed to be addressed in the plan and they were not resolved before a specified date. Because of this the previous town plan remained in place, which specified the land to be reserved for housing if required. Central government have now changed planning regulations. These new regulations require us to start the process of gathering evidence to fight this development from the beginning again.

So please help us!! sign our petition!

Please visit the website shown for more information and updates, and send us your comments.

View petition

July 11, 2006

South Essex Wildlife Hospital is a rescue, rehabilitation and public advice charity officially formed in 1995 by Sue Schwar as a result of there being no alternative wildlife facility in the area.

No sick, injured or orphaned animal is turned away, requiring that the hospital operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Our charity has been donated 3 acres of land on which to build a new hospital, as after 20 years we have out grown our existing accommodation. This land is within the green belt making it ideal for the care and release of many of the 10,000 patients per year that the hospital currently rescues.

Sadly some of the council planning officers do not consider our cause to be exceptional as they have denied us planning permission jeopardising the future of our charity.

Please add your details to our petition appealing against the council's decision and thus supporting SEWH's vital work enabling it to continue for many years to come.

View petition

When asked, we at Great Notley Garden Village and surrounding areas voted in favour of a family oriented pub/restaurant establishment to be built. We did not realise that after only a short time our families would be subject to an exclusion of children after 7 p.m.

Great Notley is a thriving village, and part of the fastest growing town in Britain today, namely Braintree. The majority of homeowners living in Great Notley are families with children who are now being penalised for being so, by the only public house/restaurant within walking distance of their homes.

View petition

The reason behind this petition is that some people feel that Mrs. Boone didn't go about the right way in selecting the players for the Varsity team. Two seniors who have played since 8th grade were cut from the team, one was given a bad explanation and the other person wasn't given one at all. She told a parent of a child who was cut that her child was not good enough as some other players to be on the team and that if she was on the team she would sit on the bench. What kind of thing is that to say to someone?

We feel that seniors should have some advantage when being picked for a team compared to 9th and 10th graders, who have the rest of high school to play varsity. Why should they come in and take senior spots when we can only play varsity not junior varsity and that this is our last year ever to play high school basketball again.

View petition