Starting mid November and now stretching into January, thousands will enjoy a few drinks with work colleagues at their works Christmas do. However whilst most will have a few drinks and call it a night, research from office provider Desk.co.uk suggests some have a desire to take things further with an office co-worker.

Jonathan Ratcliffe spokesman for Desk.co.uk said: “We were staggered at the findings, 1/3rd actually plan to take a work relationship further. Whether or not it actually works out is in the hands of the love gods I guess”.

While many single people will meet their future love interest at work, there is a darker side to it all. The new research suggests that 36% of men and women admit to having an affair with a co-worker, and 35% of men and women admit to cheating while on a business trip.

With the stresses of work reaching a fever pitch at Christmas, and plenty drinking too many free drinks, the Christmas party has long been the place where tensions can run a little high. Fights, arguments and fumbles are commonplace across the UK at this time of year.

"We’ve all seen with our own eyes what happens after a few drinks," says Desk.co.uk spokesperson Jonathan Ratcliffe, "We all know one or two people in the office who are at it don’t we - and some of these are married and in relationships”

It’s not just married workers who see the festive season as prime time to kindle a love affair. Many single people find approaching fellow office workers difficult, especially in smaller workspaces. The Christmas party gives them the perfect testing ground to see if their target feels the same way too.

Jane, 42, from Leeds, said: “I’m recently single so yeah I will be seeing if I can pull - why not! I work in a call centre and it’s basically like a nightclub the office party, lots of new faces.”

Mark, 32, from London, said: “I’ve pulled at work parties before, and cheated. Nothing came of it, but it’s a great time to go for it, everyone is happy and having fun”

Judith, 58, from Birmingham, said: “I met my ex-husband at work and we had our first snog at the works do - 30 years later we’re still together”

"Just don’t forget your mistletoe! " says Desk.co.uk spokesman Jonathan Ratcliffe.

Shocking new figures show Shelter received a call for help from the West Midlands every 5 minutes in the run up to Christmas last year, and the charity is warning that the situation this winter could be set to get worse.

New research from Shelter and M&S shows that in 2016 the charity’s national helpline received nearly nine thousand calls from the West Midlands in the two months leading into Christmas.

And crippling combination of rising homelessness, sky-high rents, problems with Universal Credit and a dearth of affordable homes means this winter the charity is preparing for huge numbers of people struggling with homelessness and housing problems to come to them for support.

And with calls from people in the West Midlands to the free Shelter helpline increasing by 26% over the past year, their expert advisers are overwhelmed with pleas for housing help.

The Shelter helpline is funded by M&S customers throughout the festive season, with 5% of every purchase made from the ‘Festive Collection for Shelter’ going directly to the charity. This means the helpline can offer housing advice and support every single day of the year for people battling bad housing and homelessness.

Mark Cook, a helpline adviser for Shelter, said: “Every Christmas I speak to parents in despair as they face the trauma of homelessness, when they should be filling stockings and looking forward to Christmas dinner.

“Even though I’ll be working at Christmas, I think myself so lucky to be able to go home at the end of the day when there are so many families having to go without such a basic need.

“No family should face the agony of losing the roof over their heads, which is why we’re calling on people to get their lunch from M&S’s Festive Collection for Shelter. Something as simple as buying a sandwich could make the world of difference to a family whose home is on the line this Christmas.”

Mike Barry, Plan A Director at M&S, said: “We know our customers care about this issue and purchasing lunch from our Festive Collection for Shelter is a small, simple way they can make a big difference this Christmas. With calls to the Shelter helpline increasing by 25% over the past year it’s more important than ever we support this important cause.”

Supervised offenders doing unpaid Community Payback cleared nearly 15 tonnes of rubbish from Sandwell’s neighbourhoods as part of the Safer 6 campaign.

Figures out today reveal offenders carried out a total of 817 hours during the six-week campaign, removing 14.96 tonnes.

Sandwell Council’s estate maintenance team works with Staffordshire and West Midlands Community Rehabilitation Company to get offenders cleaning up sites.

Places where offenders worked during campaign were as follows:

Oldbury:

• Cleared dumped rubbish from a passageway/communal area on the Lion Farm estate and cut back an overgrown area at an old allotment site in Beeches Road

• Cleared overgrown bushes in Perry Park Road, tidied up an area by garages at Falcon Place and helped at a major community tidy-up at Mousesweet Brook Nature Reserve

• Cleared rubbish, fly-tipping, moss and weeds at the side and rear access paths in Roslyn Close, to make them safer to use

• Cleared rubbish and overgrown areas at Upper Church Lane open space, and joined councillors, neighbourhood officers and police cleaning up Fred Perry Walkway

• Cleared overgrown shrubs at the pedestrian underpass and cycle route in Dudley Street, to make it safer for people to use

• Cleared dumped rubbish and overgrown areas at the Harwood Street to Mason Street walkway and Wood Lane garage site, and cleared dumped rubbish and overgrown areas at Wallface, Hill Top, on the West Bromwich/Wednesbury border

“I would like to thank our estate maintenance team and Staffordshire and West Midlands CRC for making this happen.”

The council’s estate maintenance team, neighbourhood officers, Litterwatch, volunteers, councillors, Serco and other partners also held clean-ups and litter-picks at places across Sandwell for the campaign.

During December last year and January (2017), 9,152 incidents were reported to the RSPCA in West Midlands* with 234 of those happening across Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

New figures from the animal welfare charity show that during the same period (Dec 2016/Jan 2017), the charity received 118,799 calls across England and Wales - 1,916 calls a day. (79.8 calls an hour, 1.3 calls a minute.)

From poorly, unwanted pets callously dumped on the streets to animals and wildlife deliberately cruelly treated, RSPCA inspectors are preparing to see heartbreaking cruelty and neglect this festive season.

The animal welfare charity expects to take in around 19,000 animals in need this December and January and desperately needs your help to care for them.

RSPCA superintendent Simon Osborne said: “It’s a sad fact that every day at work throughout the year can be tough for our inspectors and animal welfare and collection officers, but winter really does come with its own challenges and issues. In fact, we expect to take in somewhere in the region of 19,000 animals this winter alone.

“During the festive season alone last year, we rescued over 25,000 animals, many of whom had been cruelly abandoned, injured or abused. But we also saw so many acts of kindness by animal lovers, from the passer-by who rescued a shivering and sick puppy days before Christmas, to those who reported suffering animals to our cruelty hotline or volunteers caring for animals in our centres and branches. We are asking animal lovers across the country to show kindness this Christmas by supporting our winter appeal.”

To help the RSPCA to continue rescuing, rehabilitating and rehoming animals in desperate need of care, and to support the charity’s ‘kindness’ campaign, please visit www.rspca.org.uk/winterappeal.

City of Wolverhampton Council's gritting crews are on standby 24 hours a day, ready to swing into action whenever ice, frost or snow are forecast.

The city has a plentiful supply of 4,500 tonnes of rock salt in stock for the winter season. There is also a fleet of 9 gritting lorries and a team of drivers who each have a specific route to treat around the city should temperatures plummet.

City of Wolverhampton Council routinely treats 239 miles every time the gritters go out - that is more than 50% of all roads in the city. They are divided into priority 1 and 2 routes.

Each gritting run uses approximately 40 tonnes of salt and takes between 3 to 4 hours to complete.

Councillor Steve Evans, cabinet member for city environment, said: "Keeping people safe and the city moving is our priority and vast amounts of work behind the scenes takes place to make that happen.

"Our gritting crews are on standby 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - including over Christmas and New Year. That call out could come at any hour of the day or night and they have to be ready to respond immediately.

"There is also a dedicated team which constantly monitors the forecast - including data coming in from across the region and information specific to Wolverhampton - to be able to choose the optimal time to send the gritters out. It really is quite a scientific operation and there is a lot more involved than many people think."

Last winter, the gritters were called out in the city 47 times which meant they treated 11,233 miles of road (this is the equivalent of driving from Wolverhampton to Bolivia and back) and used 2059 tonnes of rock salt.

Many of graduates in the West Midlands have not benefitted from or used their degree in the world of work. New research conducted by Able Skills, found that 64% of graduates in the region felt they could be in the same position without a degree while (21%) said their degree was a waste of money. A third (33%) of the region’s graduates think they could be earning more if they had starting working straight from school.

Almost half of all graduates surveyed across the UK (48%) believe they could be earning more if they started working straight from school and (35%) wish they didn’t go to university at all. Perhaps because they are not using their degrees, almost three in ten of all (27%) graduates have never used their qualification at work. But this doesn’t look set to change, over half (58%) of employed graduates have no plans to move jobs to make use of their studies.

Gary Measures, Managing Director of Able Skills says: “The education, education, education boom in the 90’s has had a knock on effect. Many graduates seem to have taken this on board without seriously considering what they wanted to do post study. Evidently, further education is not the best career route for everyone and is such an investment that young people seriously need to consider their skill set and future before taking on such a commitment of their time and money. More needs to be done to educate young people on the other options available to prevent another generation making the same mistakes when they could be earning and on a career ladder.”

A lack of planning could be the problem as (31%) of graduates in the West Midlands didn’t know what they wanted to do with their degree after studying.  Able Skills offer construction training courses in electrical, plumbing, gas, plastering, carpentry, tiling, decorating and bricklaying.