Wakefield shopping centre launches pet appeal to help families struggling to keep and feed their animals amid the rising cost of living

The current economic crisis is not just affecting local families but their animals too with hundreds of people struggling in order to survive the current cost of living.

Now, The Ridings has started an appeal on social media, encouraging locals to donate pet food to ensure families can afford to keep and feed their pets.

The shopping centre has asked for any spare pet items such as any food, treats and items such as cat litter to be donated in their pet donation station, located outside Morrisons in the lower mall.

Regional Director, Lee Appleton said: “It became apparent that people are having to make some tough choices, changing pet food brands, feeding pets less etc and we felt family pets could start to suffer, we have also started to see headlines like ‘Brits fall into debt to afford pet care, as cost of living crisis hits hard’ and we thought how can we help?”

This follows news that the RSPCA is struggling with capacity problems with more people giving up their pets because of money struggle.

Brian Reeves, RSPCA's head of volunteering said: “As more animals come into our care, stay for longer with us, and fewer people are adopting, we're in a really worrying situation.

"We're in the middle of an animal crisis and we can only see it getting worse over the winter months as the cost of living crisis bites.”