17,000 children in North and Mid Wales in deep poverty

AROUND 17,000 children in North and mid Wales are living in the deepest poverty, a shocking study has found. Gwynedd and Denbighshire are worst hit in the region with a staggering 15% of children living below the poverty line.Severe poverty for youngsters is also high in Anglesey and Conwy, where 14% of families are too poor to give a decent childhood.
The study estimates 13% of children in Wrexham and 11% in Flintshire are affected.

Save the Children called on the Chancellor to draw up an emergency plan to in the next budget to channel new jobs into the poorest areas, as well as increase financial support for low-income families.

Andrew Chalinder, head of Save the Children in Wales said: "Children up and down the country 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.

“No child should be born without a chance. It is a scandal that so many children in Wales are growing up in severe poverty."

Families in severe poverty, added Mr Chalinder, are going without the things many take for granted such as separate bedrooms for older boys and girls, not being able to properly celebrate birthdays or special events and not being able to build friendships by having children round for tea.

At present, the UK government has no official way to measure how many children are caught up in severe child poverty.

Save the Children said they classes severe poverty as being a lone-parent family with one child aged under 14 living on an income of less than £7,000, or a couple with two children under 14 on less than £12,500.

The Welsh authority with the highest rate of severe child poverty is Blaenau Gwent, where the estimate is one in five children (20%).

Mr Chalinder added: "If the UK government is to fulfil its commitments on child poverty, it must find a way of counting these children in greatest need. At the moment, the needs of these children aren’t fully recognised. If these children are to have a future, we must acknowledge their desperate need and urgently target government help towards them.

“Here in Wales we welcome the Welsh Assembly Government’s commitment to end child poverty by 2020 through the launch of the Child Poverty Strategy.

“But we further urge the Assembly government, local authorities and public bodies to establish a severe child poverty focus as part of their local child poverty strategies. This will help ensure that policy benefits those children experiencing the most intense and severe poverty"