Residents who live in sheltered accommodation at Denmead, Hampshire, have expressed anger about their common room being used as a polling station.

It will be the first time the common room at White Wings House will be used following a poll last year at nearby All Saints church hall which attracted almost a thousand people, causing long queues and sparking complaints to the council.

Resident Ted Shepherd has concerns about security, especially for the more vulnerable people living at White Wings.

The 81-year-old said: “There are some people living here with learning difficulties, they’ll open their door to anyone who knocks, anyone could come in and burgle the place.

“How would they fit a fire engine or an ambulance down here if we needed one?”

One resident, Pauline Smith, is avoiding the whole three days and going to stay with her daughter in Cosham.

The residents are planning a petition on the day of the vote.

Deanne Adams, 75, who is also a White Wings resident, said: “We are not going to stop this one, but we need to stop future ones. This is our home.”

The council have said they do not have any plans to change the location.

Denmead residents ‘furious’ at sheltered accommodation being used as polling station was originally published in Breaking Views on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A Hampshire man is preparing to undertake an 800km bike ride from Northampton to Las Vegas to raise money for charity.

Philip Distin, from Locksway Road, Southsea, will be fundraising for the Arbonne Charitable Foundation, which aims to promote the development of confidence and self-esteem in teenage girls and boys.

The network marketer will cycle from Arbonne’s UK head office in Northampton to their US head office in Las Vegas via San Diego, Irvine and California.

The 38-year-old has been training for the ride for around 18 months, mainly in his garage, using heaters to prepare himself for the Las Vegas heat.

He said: “I try to get out every day, whether it’s just one or two hours. I’ve been training in my garage with four heaters at 90 degrees [Fahrenheit], it’s very, very hot.”

Philip also took part in the New Forest Sportive recently, in which he cycled 100 miles through the New Forest as a “test run” for the main event.

His goal is to raise £80,000 for the Arbonne Charitable Foundation.

He said: “I am nowhere near my goal, but I am optimistic. Hopefully people donate at the last minute.”

The charity provides support for teenagers in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia and is close to Philip’s heart.

You can donate to his JustGiving page here.

Southsea man prepares for 800 km bike ride from Northampton to Las Vegas was originally published in Breaking Views on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Victorious Festival have revealed the headliner for the Sunday as New Order.

The 80s electric-rock band will join The Vaccines, Razorlight, Clean Bandit and many more performing on the Sunday of the festival.

Festival organisers teased the announcement last week, with a giant ‘Monday’ sign in blue letters being displayed on Southsea’s Castle Field on Sunday, after their hit single ‘Blue Monday’, sparking suspicions among festival-goers.

Twitter users appeared to suss out the hint pretty quickly, with one user Tweeting:

“Must be New Order headlining victorious Sunday this year because of the big blue Monday sign on castle field?”

Another wrote:

“Anyone else seen the mysterious “Monday” sign which has appeared at the top of the Castle Field in #Southsea ? Anything to do with you @VictoriousFest”

Religious festival-goer Emily Smith said:

“I love Victorious festival, so I’d have bought tickets no matter who was playing, but the fact New Order are headlining has made me ten times as excited — they’re one of my favourite bands.”

The festival started in 2011 and now welcomes people from across the UK and has been host to some of the world’s biggest acts, such as Madness, Paul Weller and The Prodigy.

It will take place on Southsea seafront over the August bank holiday weekend.

Sunday tickets are only £35 until the end of march and are available, along with the full line-up on the Victorious Festival website.

Rumours confirmed as New Order announced as Sunday Victorious Festival headliner was originally published in Breaking Views on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Many of the cars had the letters JP, the word ‘Bucko’ (referring to Buckland) as well as rude words written on them in red spray paint.

Dave Harris, whose daughter’s car was one of those targeted, said: “People have probably come at two or three o’clock in the morning, drunk or drugged up and come and sprayed all the cars. It’s bad news for everyone.

“[My daughter’s] gran’s getting buried tomorrow, she’s got to get her son to school, go to work, try to make a living, try to keep things going and wakes up to that, it’s not a good thing really. It’s just nasty.”

Although most drivers managed to remove the paint before using their cars, some had to drive with their vehicles still covered.

One resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “I’m just glad I pay to keep my car in a garage, but I hate the fact that I have to use a garage for reasons like this.”

It is not yet known who was behind the vandalism.

Dozens of cars vandalised in streets in Portsmouth was originally published in Breaking Views on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Snow has fallen over Portsmouth as temperatures plunged as low as -15C in some parts of the country.

The Met Office has released a ‘yellow warning’, advising people to expect delays and cancellations across rail and air travel.

Delays are also to be expected across the city and the rest of the UK for vehicles travelling on the roads.

It comes after the coldest day the UK has seen since 2012 with Braemar, in north-east Scotland dropping to -14.4C and overnight temperatures in the Scottish Highlands recorded at -15.4C.

Some workplaces have warned employees not to risk travel and to work from home if possible.

Others have taken a slightly different approach, with one company offering mattresses to sleep on in the event employees are snowed in overnight.

Millie White, who works for the company said: “They have snow plans in place, where they help you plan your routes to work and offer you to stay the night if you get snowed in. It’s a good idea but I’d rather play it safe and stay at home.”

Get live weather updates from the Met Office to stay safe during the snowy weather and see some picturesque snowy scenes across the UK.

Snow falls over Portsmouth on the UK’s coldest day in 7 years was originally published in Breaking Views on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Apprentice winner Dr Leah Totton has received backlash from Twitter users after offering Everton supporter Jason Burns a free scar-reducing treatment.

The cosmetic doctor reached out on Twitter giving her sympathy and urging the fan to get in touch with her clinic to receive a complimentary treatment to minimise his scar.

Burns received the injury as a result of a fight that broke out between Everton and Millwall fans ahead of their FA Cup match on Saturday January 26.

Dr Leah on Twitter

Gosh this poor man, how awful to do that to someone's face! If anyone knows this chap, please tell him to get in touch with Dr Leah Clinics once his stitches are out- we would like to offer him treatment for the scar to minimise it as much as possible, free of charge.

But the tweet received a lot of criticism, with dozens of disgruntled users unhappy with the gesture.

One user tweeted: “You’re offering to treat someone who intentionally got involved in a fight 20 minutes away from a stadium?!”

Another wrote: “How about you treat victims of crime!”

Another mocked the famous Apprentice catchphrase: “Who does your PR? They should be ‘fired’.”

Burns posted a picture on his Facebook page showing off the gruesome wound and bruised face.

Dr Leah runs two clinics which provide cosmetic treatments and skin care.

The fight is being investigated by police.

Apprentice star criticised after offering Everton fan free scar-reducing treatment was originally published in Breaking Views on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In France in particular, men, women and children have set up camp in Calais and Dunkirk. They go to the border daily, trying any means to travel to Great Britain.

They live in awful conditions, often with no real shelter or sanitary facilities.

Luckily, there are some great people working to provide aid to people in need.

HelpRefugees is a non-governmental organisation which was founded in 2015 to provide humanitarian aid, donations and advocacy to displaced people in need.

Set up initially to provide support to people living in the original ‘Jungle’ in Calais, HelpRefugees has grown over the last three years and now works with almost 100 projects in both Europe and the Middle East.

It has seen over 25,000 volunteers from all over the world give up their time to help people in need since its birth, including celebrities and public figures.

Joining them in their warehouse in Northern France is Refugee Community Kitchen, who welcome volunteers to help them provide 1500 meals daily to distribute to camps in Calais and Dunkirk.

I went to the warehouse to see what life was like.

All hope is not lost for the refugees living in France during winter was originally published in Breaking Views on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The question is being posed after a 13-year-old girl was called a lesbian for playing football. She has been criticised recently for playing a “boy’s sport” and was even called a man.

Hannan Kirkwood, football player for the University of Portsmouth Women’s football, said: “I think football is perceived to be masculine because it’s a contact sport and there’s a high risk of being injured. It’s expected that girls can’t take that. There is a stigma. People assume because it is a masculine sport that you must be gay.”

The stigma around sexuality isn’t exclusive to just the players, either. A survey by Sports Media LGBT+ has revealed that almost 50% of people working in the sports media industry who consider themselves to be part of the LGBT+ community are not ‘out’ to their colleagues, or are only out to close friends.

Shockingly, on top of this, almost half of the people who took the survey also said they were witness or subjected to anti-LGBT language or behaviour in the past two years.

Find out what else the survey revealed here.

Are women reluctant to play sport for fear of being branded as gay? was originally published in Breaking Views on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The clubs, the fans, the game…

The training is well underway, the tickets have been bought and the 177th Manchester Derby is set to kick off at the Etihad Stadium this Sunday.

But where did the infamous match come from?

Rewind to 1881, the first meeting between two teams which would then become Manchester United and Manchester City took place.

Newton Heath (United) and St Marks (City) — who would a few years later become Ardwick — went head to head for the first time on November 12, with Newton Heath winning 3–0 and taking the very first crown. At this time the clubs were two of many from the Manchester area and the game had no real significance. Nobody knew how big the rivalry would grow to be.

Now fast forward 137 years and we find ourselves in 2018. Newton Heath have become Manchester United and Ardwick are now Manchester City. There’s been almost 200 matches, broken bones, pitch invasions, red cards, the reign of Alex Ferguson, the creation of the Premier League and the historic tragedy that was the Munich Air Disaster, which sadly killed 11 Manchester United staff — nine of whom were players.

But the game isn’t all it’s about. The fans play a huge part in the long-standing rivalry. There have been countless fights over the last 137 years between the two sides, the most recent being a 50-fan-strong brawl in April of this year in Manchester City Centre.

Man United have dominated most of the derbies so far, winning every single match in the 1990s, and 23 more games in total than Man City. But how will this favour them this weekend?

Some fans are doubting United, predicting a win for City after their 6–1 win against Southampton last Sunday.

United fan Jason Kerridge predicts a 2–0 win for Man City this weekend. He said:

“They could be at a slight disadvantage [without De Bruyne] but they still have a strong side without him.”

Another United fan has a similar opinion on how Sunday’s game will turn out, predicting a 2–1 win for City.

“I do think they are disadvantaged without De Bruyne as he plays incisive passes, which will help as we will likely plant 10 men behind the ball.”

Reuben Dawkins, Manchester United supporter

What do you think? Join the conversation on Twitter using #ManchesterDerby.

What is the Manchester Derby? The clubs, the fans, the game was originally published in Breaking Views on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Imagine all the stars in the galaxy. Times it by 500. A lot of stars, right? Now take those stars and imagine each one is a tiny piece of plastic, doesn’t seem so pretty anymore, does it?

Sadly, this is the actual amount of plastic that is polluting our oceans today and, unless we change our ways, it is set to grow.

With 100,000 marine mammals and turtles and one million sea birds killed by plastic pollution every year, it’s high time we stop burying our heads (and fag butts) in the sand and take action.

It may seem like only one plastic bottle, only one plastic bag, only one plastic straw; but if the seven billion people in the world shared that attitude, that then turns into seven billion plastic bottles, seven billion plastic bags, seven billion plastic straws.

It’s easy to assume that plastic pollution doesn’t affect us; it doesn’t seem to interrupt our daily lives on the surface. But what if I told you that, once in the ocean, plastic absorbs chemicals like PCBs and DDTs — which have been linked to some cancers — which is then mistaken by food by fish. The fish that we eat.

So, what can we do? It only takes small efforts to make a difference. Instead of buying a 5p carrier bag, bring along a reusable bag for your shopping. Instead of buying a bottle of water, use a refillable bottle and fill it from the tap. Say no to a plastic straw, drinking straight out of the glass isn’t actually that horrific.

Top Tip: bring Tupperware to the supermarket, butchers or similar shops when buying things like fresh meat, fish and loose veg — this way you can make use of that lunch box you never use and save the planet all in one shopping trip.

However, if you want to do more there are many amazing organisations out there doing their bit to help save our seas.

Like Southsea Beachwatch. Part of the Marine Conservation Society, the Portsmouth-based organisation holds monthly beach cleans with the help of volunteers just like you and I. Each month they take around two hours of their Saturday to clean up a different part of Portsmouth’s coastline.

“It’s not about trying to solve the problem, because we are just one tiny drop in the ocean, but we are trying to make people more aware of what the problem is, what the issues are and make them realise that they can have a positive impact.”

Sergio Di Dino, event organiser

They encourage everyone to do their bit, from donating two hours or just two minutes to pick up a few bits of rubbish.

Katie Carew-Robinson got involved in the October clean, along with the team at Good Gym Portsmouth, who — like many of us — like to enjoy the seafront regularly.

“We try to get involved with it as much as we can. We all run along the seafront, so we like to keep it nice.”

Katie Carew-Robinson

Local MPs are in support of the scheme, too. The Green Party’s Tim Sheerman-Chase has praised the group, saying:

“The beach cleans are very helpful, not only in cleaning but they raise the profile of the problem.”

Even the university is getting involved. They’ve recently engineered an enzyme that can digest some plastics, which could potentially be a breakthrough in the way we recycle and could breakdown the ever-growing mountain of plastic in our ocean.

It’s all well and good praising the people who are doing their bit to protect our oceans, but charity starts at home. We as individuals need to change our ways before it is too late.

Want to get involved? Southsea Beachwatch are holding their next beach clean on Saturday November 3 from 10am. Everyone is welcome to come along and get stuck in. Find out more information here.

The last straw: How Portsmouth is tackling plastic pollution was originally published in Breaking Views on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.