9,000 Warrington children living in poverty after housing costs

Data published by End Child Poverty shows the worrying scale of the issue in the town.

It states 5,659 children were in poverty before housing costs between July and September last year, which amounted to 12.58 per cent of the total number of children in Warrington.

And 9,073 kids were in poverty in the town after housing costs in the same period, which amounted to 20.18 per cent of the total number of children in the borough.

Bewsey and Whitecross was the ward with the highest number of youngsters in poverty – with 690 children in poverty before housing costs and 1,071 after housing costs.

The analysis featured the old ward of Hatton, Stretton and Walton – the majority of which now falls in the Appleton ward – and it was revealed as the ward with the lowest number of children in poverty.

It had 23 children in poverty before housing costs and 37 children in poverty after housing costs.

Cllr Maureen McLaughlin, executive board member for public health and wellbeing, said: “For a wealthy nation, these figures are an appalling indictment.

“Despite our strong economy in Warrington, sadly, wealth creation is not automatically ‘trickling down’ to those who need it most and figures like these reinforce what we already know – that the lives of children and families in parts of our borough, particularly the more central areas, continue to be blighted by poverty.

“Poverty is caused by many factors but high levels of housing-related debt and increased use of foodbanks in Warrington have been driven by the Tory Government’s early and shambolic introduction of universal credit into the borough, as well as other ‘welfare reform’ measures such as the mass retesting of people needing disability and sickness benefits such as personal independence payments and employment support allowance.

“Delays, stoppages and reductions in payments create a vicious cycle of debt and this in turn is leading to unprecedented demand on social and housing services.”

Cllr Jean Carter, executive board member for children’s services, also raised concerns.

She said: “Poverty damages lives so, of course, we are worried by these results.

“Children in poverty fall behind at all stages of education and they are twice as likely to live in bad housing, which has significant effects on both their physical and mental health.”

However, deputy chairman of Warrington Conservatives Andy Carter has hit back and accused Cllr McLaughlin of being more interested in providing ‘socialist sound bites’ than delivering solutions to help people out of poverty.

He added: “Warrington Labour don’t seem to have any ideas for tackling the problem.

“Their policies involve more debt, higher taxes and fewer jobs, which would hit ordinary people hard.

“There isn’t one simple solution to resolving child poverty and there are certainly some areas of Warrington where more needs to be done to help families improve their standard of living.

“Without a doubt, getting a job is the best route out of poverty and we want to help people into work so they have the security of a regular pay packet – and so that more families here in Warrington are able to provide for their children.

“We have made important reforms to welfare and are supporting business to create more jobs as part of our work to build a stronger economy.

“In Warrington North, for example, where some of the highest levels of deprivation exist, unemployment has fallen by 1,400 since 2010.”