Sarah
34, Wakefield
I’m Sarah. I’m 34. I live in Wakefield. I’ve got two kids — Lily who’s 9 and Josh who’s 6. I work part-time at a veterinary surgery. My mum lives twenty minutes away and I help look after her three days a week because she’s got early-onset vascular dementia. My partner, Dan, drives a delivery van. We rent.
Here’s what the last four years have been like.
Year One — the one where everything started moving
I remember the first address. Dan was sceptical — “another politician, another speech.” But then the PM gave out a website and said you could see where every penny goes. Dan actually looked it up that night. He’d never done that for any government, ever. He came to bed going “they spent HOW much on consultants?” I think that’s the moment he started paying attention.
The VAT cut was the first thing I felt in my actual life. Five percent off doesn’t sound like much but when you’re doing a weekly shop for four people and watching every penny, you notice. The Aldi receipt was about £6-7 cheaper the first week. Over a month that’s nearly thirty quid. That’s a swimming lesson for Lily.
Then Mum’s carer situation changed. I wasn’t claiming Carer’s Allowance because the earnings limit would have meant giving up my vet surgery shifts — I earned just over the threshold. When they scrapped the cliff edge, I applied. Getting even the initial £200 a week… I cried. Actually cried. That was more money than I’d ever received for looking after her, and I’d been doing it for two years for nothing because the system punished you for working.
The bus thing started toward the end of Year One. Wakefield wasn’t in the first wave of Transitco areas but you could see it happening in Leeds. My sister lives there and she said the buses just… started being on time. And the card thing worked. She tapped on a bus and then tapped on a train and it just charged her one fare. She sent me a photo of the receipt like it was a miracle. In this country, a bus connecting with a train is apparently a miracle.
Year Two — the year my mum got seen
Mum had been on the waiting list for a cataract operation for fourteen months. She could barely see. For someone with dementia, losing your sight on top of losing your memory is… I can’t describe it. She was frightened all the time. The GP kept saying “the waiting list is what it is.”
Then the army field hospital came to Wakefield. Set up in the Lightwaves leisure centre car park. Mum got a letter saying she had an appointment in nine days. Nine days. After fourteen months. Dan drove her. I couldn’t go because of work but Dan said it took twenty minutes. She came out with a patch on and by the next week she could see properly for the first time in over a year. She recognised Josh’s face and said “oh, you’ve grown” and I lost it again.
The dentist thing — God, the dentist thing. We hadn’t been able to get an NHS dentist since ours retired in 2022. Josh had never seen a dentist. I was putting it off because private was £60 just for a checkup and I couldn’t justify it. Then a new dentist appeared at the practice on Kirkgate — Dr. Kapoor, from Mumbai, lovely woman. She saw all four of us in one afternoon. Josh had two small cavities that would have been much worse in another year. £0 on the NHS. I could have kissed her.
Transitco reached Wakefield in Year Two. The 110 bus to Leeds used to just… not come sometimes. You’d stand at the stop for 40 minutes and then two would arrive together. Now it comes every 12 minutes and the evening service runs until 11. Dan and I actually went to Leeds for a meal one Saturday night — first time in three years — because we knew there’d be a bus home at 10:30. The Transitco card cost us £7 each for the whole day. The old return ticket used to be £11.40.
Josh started school and there were no SATs prep sheets coming home. The teacher — Mrs. Hallam — sent a note saying the school was adopting the new play-based curriculum early and that Year 1 would be focused on outdoor learning, creative play, and social skills. Josh comes home muddy and happy every single day. He’s learning to read through stories and games, not through phonics worksheets. He actually asks to go to school. Lily’s Year 4 and she noticed the difference too — “Mum, we did actual science today, not just practice papers.”
Year Three — the year everything got loud
Year Three was the one where Dan nearly fell out with his brother over the Republic. His brother Gary is a massive royalist — got a commemorative plate from the coronation, the works. When the PM announced they were scrapping the monarchy, Gary didn’t speak to Dan for six weeks because Dan said “good, about time.” Christmas was awkward.
Then the referendum happened and Gary voted to keep the monarchy. He lost. He’s still got the plate. But — and he’d never admit this — when they showed the Crown Estate revenue going into Utilico on the dashboard, and his energy bill dropped by another £14 the next month, he went quiet about it. Money talks louder than commemorative plates.
The Lords going — honestly, I didn’t really understand what the Lords did before. I knew they existed. I knew they wore robes. I had no idea they could block laws and that none of them were elected. When the PM explained it in that address, I genuinely said to Dan “wait, none of them? Not one?” And Dan said “nope, some of them inherited the seat from their dad.” I voted to confirm the abolition without hesitating.
The roads. Oh my God, the roads. The A638 through Wakefield has been a patchwork disaster for as long as I’ve lived here. Patches on patches, some of them you could feel through the van suspension. The Army engineering crew came through in March. They didn’t just fill the holes — they dug the whole thing up, fixed the drains underneath (apparently half the potholes were because the drains were collapsed and water was getting under the surface), and relaid it properly. It’s been nine months and not a single new pothole. Dan says it’s the smoothest road in West Yorkshire. He drives it every day, he’d know.
The drug clinic opened on Thornes Road. I was nervous about it, honestly. I didn’t want a “drug den” near the kids’ school. Then nothing happened. No increase in dodgy people hanging around. If anything, there were fewer people obviously off their heads in the town centre. The nurse at the clinic, Karen, came to the community meeting and explained it — the people who used to be injecting in the stairwell of the multi-storey car park are now in a clean room with medical supervision. They’re not on the streets because they’re in the clinic. She showed us the crime data for the area — shoplifting down by a third. I changed my mind. I’m not ashamed to say that.
Mum’s carer pay went up to £350 and then to £500. Five hundred pounds a week. For looking after my mum. I work three days at the surgery, I care for Mum three days, and for the first time in my adult life I’m not choosing between the electricity bill and Lily’s school trip. Dan and I went on holiday. An actual holiday. A week in Scarborough. The kids were so excited they packed three days early.
Year Four — the year it started feeling normal
That’s the weird thing about Year Four. The changes from Years One to Three were dramatic — you noticed them, you talked about them, they were on the news every night. Year Four is the year it all started just… being how things are. The bus comes on time. The card works. The bills are transparent. The dashboard exists and Dan checks it every Sunday like football results. The reactor came online and our Utilico bill showed “nuclear baseload” as a line item and the rate was lower than gas. Just… lower. Not dramatically. Just consistently, quietly lower.
The heritage day thing made me unexpectedly emotional. We’ve got a Polish lad at the surgery — Tomek — been here nine years, works harder than anyone I know. When he found out he was getting Constitution Day off as a proper day — not from his annual leave, just recognised — he was so touched he brought in a cake the next day. He said no employer had ever acknowledged that he might want to celebrate where he came from. It cost the practice nothing. One day. But it meant everything to him.
Josh joined Cubs. Proper Cubs — not the badge-factory version my friend’s older kid did where they got badges for “digital skills” and “global awareness.” Josh is learning to tie knots and build shelters and cook on a campfire. He came home from his first camp weekend absolutely filthy, completely exhausted, and said it was the best day of his life. Lily’s in Guides and she’s just done her navigation badge — actual compass and map navigation in the Peak District, not a worksheet about maps. The group gets funding now so we didn’t have to pay for the campsite. Her uniform was covered too because we’re on Universal Credit for the carer element.
The court live-streaming thing — Dan got called for jury service and did it from home. He was on a fraud case, not violent, so it qualified for remote service. Two weeks, sitting in the spare room with his FlameOS login, watching the evidence, going into the virtual jury room to deliberate. He said it was actually fascinating — he’d never seen how a trial works before. And he didn’t lose two weeks of work because he could do his delivery route in the morning and log into the court in the afternoon when the judge sat. His employer didn’t lose him. The justice system didn’t lose a juror. Everyone won.
People’s Day was lovely. Our street did a little party — nothing organised by the council or the government, just someone on the WhatsApp group saying “shall we do something?” Tables in the road, everyone brought food. Tomek brought pierogi. The family from number 42 — I think they’re from Eritrea, I’ve never actually asked — brought something amazing with lentils. Mrs. Patterson from the end house is 83 and she brought a Victoria sponge and sat in the sun telling Josh about rationing during the war. It was just… nice. A day that belonged to us, not to a monarch or a military anniversary. Just people, being people, in a street, with food.
The vote in November
I’ve voted in all four confidence votes. The first one I voted yes because I was hopeful. The second because the field hospital fixed my mum’s eyes and the dentist fixed my son’s teeth. The third because the roads were smooth and the crime was down and the carer money changed my life. The fourth because I looked at the dashboard — the actual dashboard, the actual numbers — and I couldn’t find a single thing the government had promised and not delivered. Not one. The timelines were honest. The delays were explained. The money was tracked. I’ve never trusted a government before. I don’t know if I trust this one exactly. But I trust the dashboard. And the dashboard says they’re doing what they said they’d do.
Dan voted yes all four times too. So did Gary, though he’ll go to his grave denying it. The plate’s still on the shelf. But the energy bill is lower, the roads are fixed, the buses run, and his grandkids are in Scouts learning to light fires instead of filling in worksheets. He votes with his life, even if he won’t admit it with his mouth.
If you’d told me four years ago that my mum would have her sight back, my kids would have a dentist, I’d be earning £500 a week for caring, the buses would run on time, the roads would be smooth, there’d be a nuclear reactor powering my house, and I could watch a court case from my phone while my partner did jury service from the spare room — I’d have laughed at you. I’d have said that’s not how this country works. Things don’t get better here. They just get more expensive and more broken.
They got better. I can see it. It’s on the dashboard.
That’s Sarah. One citizen. One town. Four years. Every change felt in a real life.