1 in 5 children in town living in severe poverty
8:36am Wednesday 23rd February 2011 in News
ALMOST one in five children in Bolton live in the “most severe poverty”
according to a report out today.
The figures contained in Save the Children’s Severe Child Poverty: Locally and Nationally report show that 17 per cent — around 8,000 —of all children in the borough live in a household which struggles to make ends meet and lacks basic necessities.
The national average in England is 13 per cent with neighbours Manchester topping the list with 25,000 or 27 per cent of all children living in severe poverty.
Bolton has the tenth worst percentage of children in “severe poverty”, according to the report.
Last night, a senior Bolton councillor said the situation in the borough would only get worse in the face of swingeing cuts.
Save the Children say there is no official measure of severe child poverty.
But the charity says its definition, for the purpose of the report, is “a household with an income of below 50 per cent of the median (after housing costs), and where both adults and children lack at least one basic necessity, and either adults or children or both groups lack at least two basic necessities.”
These basic necessities include things like parents not having enough shoes, being unable to afford to decorate the home, pay for household contents insurance or repair electrical goods.
For children it means missing out on things like celebrating birthdays, having friends round, swimming lessons and school trips.
Town Hall chiefs have joined the charity’s calls for Chancellor George Osborne to draw up an emergency plan to tackle severe child poverty.
Cllr Madeline Murray, Executive member for children, said the figures made depressing reading.
She added: “Things are not going to get any better.
A lot of the grants that have helped us tackle child poverty are being cut so I would definitely support the calls for an emergency plan.”
Sally Copley, Save the Children's head of UK policy, said: “Children are going to sleep at night in homes with no heating, without eating a proper meal and without proper school uniforms to put on in the morning.
“It is a national scandal.”
