The situation is dangerous and getting worse.  • There are no pedestrian crossings on any of the three crossing points.  • There is a lack of effective speed limit and traffic light enforcement.  As a result, some residents feel trapped in their own homes because it is too dangerous to cross the road, including parents with children, elderly people, and those with limited mobility or disabilities. The pedestrian refuge islands are too short for a bicycle, too narrow for a parent with children, and inconsistent for those using mobility aids, making safe crossing impossible. Without safe crossing and speed management, residents cannot safely access essential services including schools, GP and dental services, pharmacy, the Iffley Turn bus stop, shops, library, sports facilities, Florence Park, and community spaces.  Some residents report waiting several minutes for a safe gap to cross. Most have experienced dangerous situations. Many residents feel forced to drive even very short journeys because walking across the junction feels unsafe. Near-misses happen, and it is only a matter of time before someone is seriously hurt. The safety of this junction must be the paramount priority. This has been previously discussed with councillors, with reassurances made, but it only resurfaces as a topic when local elections approach. This petition is about basic safety and dignity. People should not be trapped in their own neighbourhood because crossing the road has become too dangerous. Sign to demand action before someone gets hurt. 

This is important because sewage pollution directly harms people, wildlife, and the environment.  1. Protect Public Health – Sewage carries bacteria, viruses, and chemicals that can make people sick if it enters rivers, seas, or drinking water. 2. Save Wildlife – Rivers, lakes, and oceans are home to fish, birds, and plants that are killed or damaged by untreated sewage. 3. Preserve Ecosystems – Clean water is essential for healthy ecosystems. Sewage disrupts the balance, leading to long-term environmental damage. 4. Prevent Climate & Environmental Damage – Polluted water contributes to wider environmental issues, including harming the oceans, coastal areas, and local communities. 5. Uphold Human Rights – Water is a basic human need. Everyone deserves safe, clean water, not water treated as a profit-making commodity. In essence: clean water is life — we can’t let profit destroy it. Privatised water companies have been allowed to prioritise shareholder dividends over environmental protection and infrastructure investment. The result has been widespread sewage dumping into our rivers and seas, damaging wildlife, harming public health, and polluting our natural environment. We call on the Government to:  • End the system that allows water companies to effectively self-regulate.  • Legislate to remove the routine use of sewage overflow discharges into rivers and coastal waters.  • Introduce a clear and time-bound plan to return water services to public ownership.  • Require mandatory reinvestment of profits into infrastructure and environmental protection. Clean water and healthy ecosystems must come before corporate profit. 🧪  Sewage spill scale • In 2023, water companies discharged untreated sewage into rivers and seas for around 3.6 million hours — the worst on record. That’s more than 410 years’ worth of raw sewage dumped in one year.   • There were approximately 464,056 sewage spill events reported in 2023 — up about 54 % from the previous year.   📉  How frequent and long • On average, each monitored storm overflow spilled around 31.8 times during 2023 — far above the government’s target of less than 10 per year.   • Untreated sewage spills often lasted around 8 hours each time they occurred.   🌊  Coastal pollution • Analysis shows over 68,000 incidents of sewage released directly into the seas and estuaries in 2023, lasting more than 440,000 hours near coastal waters.   🐟  Environmental impact • Sewage discharges contribute to widespread water quality failures — with many waterbodies not meeting ecological health targets because of sewage and wastewater pollution.   🧍‍♂️  Health & Recreation • High sewage spill rates have been linked with increased illness reports after swimming in bathing waters, with thousands of people falling sick in recent seasons.  

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. Add your signature now to join our mission to support men and boys health - in it together. Thank you. Dr Jason Schroeder  CEO Scottish Mens Sheds Association

The cost to charge an electric vehicle on the UK road system is often as high as filling a vehicle with fossil fuels, this is no encouragement to make the switch.  There is clear profiteering from the big players and this needs to be capped.

Project Play works with children at the border between France and the UK. In recent years, children have been telling us more and more about experiences of horrifying violence at the hands of the state. From tear gassing babies to confiscating toys and tents during brutal evictions, the actions of the police leave many children terrified and traumatised. Children also tell us about witnessing drowning, injury and death during attempts to cross the Channel. New reports from Humans For Rights Network and Project Play show that UK funding and policy is responsible for deaths at the border in Calais. The UK government has given at least £784 million to France since 2014 for border security. A group of French MPs have recently launched an inquiry into how joint UK-French funding has affected people’s lives there, and it’s time for the UK to do the same. 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. In their memory, we must stop the cruel policy choices that led to their deaths.  People have to land on UK soil in order to claim asylum. UK policy has left people in Calais no choice other than to use dangerous methods to do this, because no safe and legal routes are provided. And, according to the French Interior Minister, 720 out of 1200 police officers patrolling the border daily - the ones treating children and babies with such inhumane violence - are funded by the UK. We need an urgent inquiry into how our funding and policy is causing deaths and trauma for people at our borders.  

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 hours 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.