Weymouth, Dorset; Article Controversy; Sun, Sand and Inequality?

I missed this article

Read it here, The Guardian (article published in The Observer on Sunday)


Sun, sand and inequality: why the British seaside towns are losing out

Holiday resorts - and not inner cities - were identified last week as centres of low ambition and limited opportunity. Beyond the beach, Weymouth is a place beset by low wages, lack of transport, isolation and poverty of aspiration

Tracy McVeigh, 22 June 2014

Some extracts:

"On a sunny June day, Weymouth's esplanade is in full British seaside resort swing.... But immediately behind the seafront the gift shops and cafes are interspersed with betting and pawn shops and overhung with To Let signs. Deeper into the town and the Littlemoor housing estate is among the most deprived in Europe, directly butted up against the more affluent Preston.

Office for National Statistics figures released on Friday show schoolchildren in coastal towns falling dramatically behind their counterparts in the inner cities in terms of GCSE results...

"Enter this part of Dorset and you leave the 21st century behind. If you are interested in culture or remotely artistic, this is a wasteland," says Charlotte Storey, former actress and teacher, who runs Aspire, a successful small charity helping young people find their way into further education and employment.

"It's a generation behind. A prison of passion, a graveyard of ambition. My advice to young people would be go east, get out. People think 'oh, wealthy Dorset', and parts of it are, but behind that, behind the honey-coloured cottages that are the second homes of the Londoners, there is mass deprivation.

"Weymouth has the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in the country. Drug use is rife. If you're a young person, you leave school and you can maybe get work from June to September, but that's it. The average income around here is £12,000 to £15,000."

Unemployment is at less than 3%, but half of those in work have part-time jobs and previous UK-wide studies suggest many people in part-time work would like to get full-time jobs.

Just over 21% of Weymouth's adult population need benefits to help with housing costs. Almost a quarter of households have no car and locals complain the bus services have been cut to the bone. "Young people who want to go to college can't get there because of the buses. They drop out," says Storey. "They don't sign on the dole because you have to get into the dole office in the major towns and they use up all their jobseekers' allowance on the bus fares and if you're late you get your payment suspended for six months. So what is the point? They are off the radar.

"The rural isolation and low wages mean schools can't get the great teachers, the expectations of parents are so low, or non-existent. There is no motorway, the train to London is expensive and take three hours; many of the young people I've worked with have never been. This part of Dorset is locked in on itself."