Shock report from End Child Poverty campaign
A group of more than 100 charities joined forces in the End Child Poverty campaign, pinpointing pockets of child poverty across the land.
Worst spots in South Holland and The Deepings are Sutton Bridge, where 22 per cent of children live in poverty, and St Paul’s Ward in Spalding, where the level is 21 per cent.
The report says: “Child poverty damages children’s experience of childhood and harms their future life chances.”
It also says child poverty is “corrosive”, with poor children missing out on good housing and a proper diet, and likely to underachieve at school.
Earlier research carried out among families in poverty by Save The Children revealed:
l 80 per cent borrowed money for essentials, food and clothes
l 61 per cent of parents cut back on food
l 19 per cent don’t buy children’s shoes when needed
l 14 per cent don’t give children warm winter coats when needed
l 19 per cent can’t send children on school trips
The yardstick for child poverty is when families have less than 60 per cent of the average wage.
Some three million children in the UK are assessed as living in poverty – more than a quarter of all children.
It’s estimated a further 400,000 will be living in relative poverty by 2015-2016, partly as a result of sweeping changes to the tax and benefit system.
The average number of children living in poverty across South Holland and The Deepings is 12 per cent, but it varies widely across the area and in Spalding.
Only Deeping St James has a figure below five per cent.
Child poverty levels are: Crowland and Deeping St Nicholas (11), Donington, Quadring and Gosberton (13), Fleet (7), Gedney (17), Holbeach Hurn and Holbeach Town (15), Long Sutton (12), Moulton, Weston and Cowbit (12), Pinchbeck and Surfleet (14), Spalding Castle (9), Spalding Monks House (7), Spalding St John’s (12), Spalding St Mary’s (14), Spalding Wygate (7), The Saints (13), Whaplode and Holbeach St John’s (13), Market and West Deeping (9).
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Friday 24 May 2013
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