Tag Archives: Upper Calder Valley Plain Speaker

Some facts and figures about Calderdale Royal Hospital PFI debt repayments

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The costs of repaying the PFI debt and of paying for the expensive PFI hospital maintenance and service contracts are one of the causes of the Calderdale and Huddersfield hospital Trust’s finance problems.

PFI costs, funding shortage and Strategic Review of future of NHS and social care

Shortage of funding is behind the proposed closure of Calderdale A&E and at least 100 acute hospital beds, and their replacement by a new system of care in the community that is based on an American private health care system used by a company called Kaiser Permanente.

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Parts Per Million shortlisted for climate change arts award

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At the reopening of Tate Britain, Liberate Tate traced the chronology of the exhibition “BP Walk Through British Art” to mark the increase in carbon in the atmosphere over each decade.

This performance, Parts Per Million, is one of four pieces short-listed in the “Best Artistic Response” category of the Climate Week awards.
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Campaign to Protect Our A&E gets good response in Todmorden

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On Saturday 15th February, Calderdale 38 degrees NHS campaign group held an information stall on Todmorden market.

Despite the cold and wet, they had an excellent reception with many people stopping to talk about the rumoured threats to Calderdale and Huddersfield A&E departments. 130 people signed a petition asking the Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group to ‘protect our A&E’. Continue reading →

Judge rules bedroom tax does not apply to bedroom for visiting child

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Thanks to Joe Halewood’s blog that published the news of a successful Housing Benefit/Bedroom Tax appeal in Liverpool. The judge upheld the appeal against Leeds City Council, on the grounds that a parent has a responsibility to provide accommodation to a child when they visit.
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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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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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