Sleep apnoea is not a minor inconvenience. It can severely affect physical and mental health, increase the risk of road and workplace accidents, and contribute to life-threatening conditions such as cardiovascular disease. Early diagnosis and prompt treatment are critical. Yet persistent underfunding has led to excessive waiting times and limited access to essential equipment, leaving many without the urgent care that they need. 

Uber make the complaints process a complete nightmare and make what should be a straightforward process unbelievably difficult if not impossible.

Teachers have reported bullying and racism from leadership. Parents have reported having their concerns around safeguarding ignored. We have lost talented and dedicated staff members under suspicious circumstances. The parent body has lost faith in the leadership to provide our children with a safe nurturing environment and fully support teachers in their desire to have a safe and respectful working environment.

Our money could be used to fund much needed Social House building and local services. A managed phase-out of fossil fuels is the only fair way to solve our climate crisis and end the creation of new plastics polluting our planet.  Allow us to spend our taxes where we want them spent.

Men in Scotland are facing a silent health crisis. They are significantly more likely to die by suicide, experience social isolation, and suffer poorer health outcomes than women—yet why does Scotland still not have a dedicated Men’s Health Strategy? While the UK Government announced its first ever Men and Boys’ Health Strategy for England in November 2025, and countries like Ireland (since 2009) already have targeted policies in place, the Scottish Government has confirmed there are currently no plans to develop one. This is all despite clear evidence—including recent Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) research—showing men account for the vast majority of suicide deaths in Scotland. The Scottish Government has recognised that different groups have different health needs, demonstrated by the appointment of a Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health (2021-present) and a Women’s Health Plan (2021-29). Yet men, who face some of the most severe and persistent health inequalities, continue to lack a focused, national strategy to address their specific challenges. Is it because men are still influenced by the ‘Strong and Silent’ type Victorian male ‘worker’ cultural model and suffering in silence is seen as a badge of masculine honour so nobody ‘hears’ about it until it’s too late? In a recent response, Jenni Minto, Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health, confirmed “There are no current plans for the Scottish Government to develop a specific strategy focused on men’s health”. This comes at a crucial time, as Scotland prepares a new Suicide Prevention Action Plan, and as the rest of the UK begins taking coordinated action to improve men’s health outcomes. The Scottish Men's Sheds Association (SMSA), as the national body leading support for male lifestyle health, wellbeing, and prevention through the Men’s Shed movement, has never received direct funding from the Scottish Government’s ring-fenced budget for suicide prevention which increased again to at least £3 million for the 2026–27 financial year. This is despite more than 11 years of proven impact since the first Men’s Shed opened in Scotland, and the SMSA now supporting and developing over 210 Sheds nationwide—engaging 12,000+ men in their communities, reducing isolation, and improving both physical and mental health. The Scottish Government has stated it wants to explore “new and creative” ways to reach and support men. We welcome this ambition. However, it is deeply concerning that the government has not invested in, from this pot, nor fully utilised the over a decade-long infrastructure, expertise, and trusted community engagement already established through the intergenerational SMSA central hub and the collaborative research done over a four-year period with Glasgow Caledonian University.

In 2024 and 2025, 22 children lost their lives at the UK-France border. Their names were Abadeh, Mohamed, Roula, Sara, Abdelaziz, Mohammed, Ishannullah, Sablia, Meri, Mansur, Maryam, Salah, Agdad, and 8 unnamed children. Many more adults were also killed. We remember and mourn them. Their memory must be honoured by an end to the violence that led to their deaths. Project Play works with children at the border, offering play sessions - a chance for children to relax, have fun and have access to some opportunities for personal development. Children frequently tell us about their experiences while living in Calais and Dunkirk and trying to cross the UK-France border. In recent years, children are experiencing more and more violence at the hands of the state. We have received countless reports of police using tear gas against groups of children including young babies. We have also met many children who are terrified of the police after repeated exposure to police eviction operations, where the police clear living sites and confiscate tents, toys, and other personal belongings. Children also experience traumatic failed crossing attempts, sometimes falling into the water or witnessing the death or injury of other people trying to cross the Channel. There are many more difficult experiences that children report to us every day. As research by Humans for Rights Network shows, the UK government is responsible for the situation at the UK-France border. If the UK created safe and accessible routes for people to cross the Channel without risking their lives, there would be no need for people to make dangerous crossings in small boats and lorries. But instead of doing that, the UK government has given at least £784 million to France since 2014, to securitise the border and attempt to stop people from crossing. We know this money has funded increased police presence on the beaches, and according to the French Interior Minister, 720 police officers out of 1200 patrolling the border daily are funded by the UK. In 2025, the UK government tried to persuade the French police to intervene when boats are up to 300m from the shore, even though 65 people died within 300m from the shore in 2024.

We're sick of it. Sick of the lies, sick of the greed, and sick of a system rigged against us. This is a scandal and this dirty business must end. For more than 30 years water companies have put corporate greed and profit before public health and the environment.    Our privatised water system has failed.  Sewage pollution is making people sick, destroying livelihoods, and wrecking our environment. Whilst bills rise, water companies extract billions and fail to invest. Whilst they get rich, we get sick.  This is no accident. It was a choice. Since privatisation, the Government and regulators have looked the other way and let this scandal fester. Now our waters are some of the dirtiest in Europe.   After more than three decades of broken pipes, broken promises and a devastating human cost, your Government has pledged “once in a generation” plans to clean up the water industry. But in reality, your plans lock us into the privatised system where profit comes first and the public gets sick.    What are we calling for?     1. Public health must come first and profit from sewage pollution must end.   2. The Government must end the current privatised water industry.   3. The Government must take back control of water companies and restructure them, removing the profit motive, to ensure they operate for people and the environment. No option, including public ownership, should be off the table.  It’s time to end the profit-driven sewage scandal and put #PeopleBeforePayouts 

Stagecoach is stopping people from getting to places because people can't afford £3 for a bus that used to be £1

In our rural area there is almost no brown-field building land, so field after green field is going under concrete. Trees are being felled. The water table is higher than ever before. In the current climate conditions, houses are flooding, roads are flooding. Sewage is pouring across our streets and into play areas. And still we are forced to build more houses to meet impossible Government targets. We call for the Government to purchase local land and fund its conversion to Wetlands, to absorb and hold surface water, to reduce flooding, to slow the loss of biodiversity and form an environment where our increasingly cornered wildlife can thrive. 

Hens left to rot for days next to injured birds. Entire lives spent in a space not much bigger than an A4 sheet of paper – never seen the sun or felt the earth. Workers caught on camera kicking them, crushing their necks, and tossing them into crates like rubbish. That’s still the cruel reality for 7 million hens locked in cages across the UK. Now, we have a unique opportunity to end this industrial-scale torture: the Government has proposed ending the use of cages for British hens, and they have launched an official consultation to ask the public if we support a ban. But big farming lobbyists are fighting back hard to delay the transition. We are so close to ending this suffering – we can’t let the egg industry derail it now. We only have a few weeks left to flood the consultation with our voices, and give the Secretary of State a powerful public mandate to stand up to the mega-farms. Please sign this petition to ban cages for British hens, and share it far and wide – every name added will be submitted to the official consultation. Affordable food doesn’t have to come at the cost of animal welfare. In fact, major UK supermarkets and household brands have already switched to cage-free eggs – from Co-op to Sainsbury's, and from Heinz to Hellmann's. Now the government needs to catch up with these industry leaders and create a level playing field: protecting our farmers from being undercut by low-welfare eggs, and ensuring that British shelves are cruelty-free. Sign this petition and share it. Let’s flood the consultation with our voices — and bring an end to the cage age.

Sadly, it has come to my attention that after over four decades of the Ridings Shopping Centre being here, it will be demolished. The once vibrant, hustle and bustle of busy shops and shoppers alike is soon to be nothing but a distant memory, to be forgotten as if it were never there to begin with. It’s hard to understand why this happening. It’s not only the shop owners that are being thrown out on their ear but also the individuals, single mums and the families with their children, living in the flats above. These poor people were barely given a day’s notice before this was announced. No indication of re-homing, temporary accommodation, nothing, just a cold harsh black and white neatly typed generic letter with no remorse, compassion or feeling of regret with what is about to happen to these people.   It’s hard to think that a place that for so long had given people warmth and safety from the harsh weather, not to mention being part of our local heritage, will just be destroyed for no good reason. It is a safe place for people to raise their children. A place where people can meet their friends for coffees, go see a movie, shopping spree or do their usual groceries. A place that did not discriminate based on age, ethnicity or wealth. There was always something for everyone. I remember walking through the Ridings not so long ago, spending time and money at the craft fayres; and just genuinely enjoying myself a long with my friends. Imagining what interesting things I could buy them for Christmas, trying unique ethnic foods from all over the world. But, in the next two years it will be destroyed and become nothing but an eye sore.  My friend overheard a disabled girl say “Where can I go when this is no longer here? I feel safe because it’s indoors”. It’s sad to say it will soon be no longer indoors, it will be exposed, open space and houses replacing the ones already there. No more safe, warm shelter for the disabled, the elderly or those suffering with anxiety in this location. Not everyone likes or can handle open spaces like we already have at the Trinity Shopping Centre, myself included.   I must admit that I have a nagging thought running through my head. Where are the shop owners going to go if they can’t relocate? What will happen to the employees of the shops? Unemployment is already bad enough without hundreds of people and dozens of businesses closing because, “we want to build more homes in this location, even though we already have some”. People go to these shops, support these businesses, which in turn employ people because they are central, somewhere familiar, easy access for people in wheelchairs, etc. now they will be scattered all over the place. Not everyone can walk or drive to numerous locations all around Wakefield to visit the places they are used to going, a journey that could take less than two minutes between shops, could now take hours, assuming they are able to.   It feels like this is more about a huge organisation making money out of the taxpayer, than supporting small businesses and people. Almost feels like an oxymoron kicking people out of their homes to make new ones they don’t need or can’t immediately be moved into. Who are these homes to be made for? I have heard, it won’t be the current tenants. They say this project will take between ten to fifteen years to complete. It starts in 2028. Roughly, two years from now, the safe, warm place, this thriving business location, this home. It won't be there anymore.   I understand that it may look a little tired and weathered. Surely it would be more cost effective to revamp, freshen up the place, rather than destroy it. May even be worth restoring it back to its former glory. Some people have said the black and gold of the eighties did make it look like it you were visiting a glamorous American Mall straight out of the movies. But is this a bad thing? I believe its design was based on something like this? Some people don’t always like ultra modern, some people like nostalgia. It's surely more cost effective to breathe some new life in to the place and bring hope and optimism to people and businesses alike.   How far will people take this? What is next for the chopping board in our historical Wakefield? What other part of our heritage is to be dismantled so a corporate organisation can make a few quid? The Hepworth? Cathedral? The Rugby grounds we are so famous for?   The Ridings is our Meadow Hall, our White Rose, our Bloomingdale’s.  Please help keep our Heritage and sign this petition. 

The Home Office has arbitrarily decided that dual British citizens can no longer enter the UK without a valid British passport from 25th February 2026. This rule change has come like a bolt from the blue, with thousands of people unaware they are about to be locked out of their own country. I only learned about this from a newspaper article while visiting family in France. My British passport expired three months ago, and because of this sudden deadline and travelling on my French passport, I have been left scrambling to find a way home. It is bureaucracy gone mad. Now, British citizens without a current British passport need to pay a £589 fee for a "certificate of entitlement" just to get home. Lots of people are potentially affected by this ruling, some of whom might be currently abroad or do not have time to renew passports before the deadline. Even if you are not affected, you will know someone who is. We are asking the Home Office to stop this chaos, delay the deadline, and ensure British citizens are not penalised for having dual nationality.