Thanks to the 349 people who signed #BanTheBurn petition

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Thanks to the 349 people who signed the Ban the Burn petition (including one enthusiastic or forgetful person who signed it twice!).

The petition calls on Natural England and Defra to ban heather burning and drainage ditches on blanket bogs, and stop loopholes in the Heather and Grass Burning Code, and other relevant regulations and laws, that can be used to create exemptions to the ban on burning and draining blanket bogs.

I’ve now posted the petition (with all 12 pages of the list of signatories) to Andrew Wood, Executive Director Evidence and Policy at Natural England, and George Eustice MP, Defra Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for farming, food and marine environment.
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10 days before caredata grab of your confidential medical records, Government puts scheme on 6 month hold

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Latest news update: Wahey! The Coalition government has put this massively flawed scheme on hold for 6 months. Let’s make sure this is a more productive and meaninglful pause than the one they called when they were finding it hard to get the Health and Social Care Act passed.

Before the news that the Government was putting this scheme on hold for six months, if you haven’t already opted out of the unconsented “caredata” collection of your personal confidential GP medical records, you had until 28th February to do this.

Unless you opt out (which is easy, and how to do it is outlined below), your personal confidential GP records will be automatically sent to a new Health and Social Care Information Centre database, without your consent, and regularly updated and linked to other personal confidential data from your visits to hospitals, clinics or social care organisations,
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Valley Organics, source of buckwheat and anti-fracking news

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OK, I picked up a 55p bag of yellow split peas at the Coop today, but a wish for buckwheat led me to Valley Organics, where I found not only buckwheat but an irate shopper complaining that I Gas, the company fracking Barton Moss in Salford, had been discharging radioactive fracking waste water into Manchester Ship Canal.

I recognised him from the anti-fracking meeting addressed by Kirklees Green Party Councillor and Green MEP candidate, Andrew Cooper
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Time travel with Community Foods’ 55p split peas at the Coop

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I have just bought 500g of yellow split peas at the Coop for 55p, although the green lentils had all gone (the type I like – and, I guess, the type most other people like too).

This sent me on a search to other food shops in Hebden, where I found green lentils at £2.50, so decided to wait until the Coop puts another batch of £1.29 green lentils on its shelves.

The Coop yellow split peas were in a packet that said Community since 1971.
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Sharing economy opens windows into new worlds

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Louise Heppleston writes about her experience as an Airbnb host in Hebden Bridge

Louise

Since the kids left home (with only a little prompting) I’ve had a spare room available. For two years it was occupied by a lad leaving care…and his stash of weed, his staffie and his under-age girlfriend.

A few months respite, and I had a failed asylum seeker in need of free board and lodging. And legal advice. And support to visit the immigration centre on a weekly basis.
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Stop police brutality at Barton Moss

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This video was shot yesterday at the Barton Moss anti-fracking protest camp and uploaded to YouTube by Jason Smalley. It shows a horrendously violent arrest of a woman that ends with her having a seizure. The police are supposed to be public servants not agents of corporations. Whatever anyone thinks of the pros and cons of fracking, policing like this is not on. It’s like the 1984 Miners Strike all over again.
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Conflict of interest fears as Hunt appoints NHS adviser with big private healthcare interests

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Unite has today (Friday) called on the Secretary of State for Health to explain why he
has appointed a former M&S boss, with interests in a private healthcare firm that is
eyeing up stealth-privatised NHS contracts, to an influential role in the management of
the NHS.

According to the Guardian, the role is to advise on how to build up new management to
transform failing hospitals. Update: This remit was extended in early 2015 to include how best to equip clinical commissioning groups to deliver the Five Year Forward View.

Apparently what was good for Marks & Spencer will be good for the NHS.
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Yorkshire ambulance staff strike to protect patient safety from effects of £46m cuts

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As Yorkshire paramedics and ambulance staff go on strike for two days,  Unite is calling for an independent inquiry by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) into the long-running Yorkshire ambulance dispute,

Unite, the country’s largest union, said that such an inquiry was needed so the Yorkshire public could judge for itself the impact on patient safety of £46 million of cuts over five years.
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Was Calderdale Licensing Subcommitttee in breach of Council’s own licensing policy?

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This is a genuine question to which, at the time of writing, UCV Plain Speaker didn’t know the answer.

Now, thanks to the wonders of social media, Dave Taylor, a Green Councillor in York, has provided an answer. In short, the answer is no. The reason why is outlined below, in the section “York Councillor Dave Taylor comes up with the answers”.

The question arose because UCV Plain Speaker was in search of reasons why, at the Calderdale Licensing Subcommittee meeting on 13th February 2014, the Chair and the Calderdale Council Solicitor repeatedly refused to allow various objections from Hebden Bridge residents to the Sainsbury’s Local alcohol licence application for its as-yet non-existent Valley Road store,
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Non-existent Sainsbury’s Local gets its alcohol licence

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Calderdale Council Licensing Subcommittee has approved a licence for the sale of alcohol between 7am-11pm, 7 days a week at Sainsbury’s Local on Valley Road, Hebden Bridge, even though the store hasn’t yet got planning permission.

At the licence application hearing on 13th February, the solicitor representing Sainsbury’s said,

“If you took alcohol out of the store, the incremental impact is very significant. I’m virtually sure that Sainsbury’s Local wouldn’t open this store if it didn’t get the alcohol licence.”

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