FIGURES SHOW THAT INEQUALITY REMAINS A BIG ISSUE

CHILD poverty continues to hit Teesside harder than most of the country, new data has revealed.

- By DANIEL HODGSON Local Democracy Reporter

The figures, broken down to neighbourhood level across Teesside’s 70 electoral wards, show not only a high level of child poverty across many of the region’s areas, but the sheer inequality between wards that are just a couple of miles apart from each other. There is a 79 percentage point difference between the hardest hit ward and the one that is least affected by child poverty, with figures ranging from 85% to just 6%.

The data comes from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) as it was reported that in the year ending March 2024, 4.5m children were found to be living in relative poverty, an increase of 121,000 on the year before. The statistics reflect the last full year under the Conservative government, with the Labour government elected in July last year. The new government has been accused of not doing enough to fix the stark poverty problems faced in areas including Teesside.

Local councils have given their verdict on the matter and explained what they are doing to try and fix what seems to be a never-ending problem in Teesside. The Government, meanwhile, highlighted their ministerial taskforce when approached for comment.

Teesside areas currently double the national average as the level of children who live in poverty across the whole of the country sits at 22%. There are seven wards across Teesside’s three council areas where the level of child poverty is more than double this figure. In the Middlesbrough wards of Newport, Central, North Ormesby, Berwick Hills and Pallister, as well as Brambles and Thorntree, the levels of poverty range from 85% to 46%.

Meanwhile, Grangetown is the fifth most affected ward in Teesside, with 856 kids living in poverty, equating to 48% of its child population. Like Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton also has one ward where the rate of child poverty is more than double the national level and that is 46% in Newtown.