The streets where it’s too expensive to work

A young woman is pushing a pram across Featherstall Road.

Her three-year-old, Zayaan, is zooming a shiny toy car through the air in front of him, smiling to himself.

The youngster is oblivious to the row of shuttered up shopfronts around him.

One bears a sign reading: ‘This shop has been REPOSSESSED by the landlord’.

He is oblivious also to the piles of litter nearby, spilling into back alleys.

And to the fact children like him in part of Oldham have been hit harder by deprivation than any other corner of Greater Manchester.

The streets of Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton are home to the highest child poverty levels in the north west.

“That doesn’t surprise me at all,” his 21-year-old mum Nadia, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

“This is Oldham.”

This year, the constituency’s child poverty levels hit 54 per cent, according to the annual UK Poverty Report – closely followed by Rusholme, Manchester with 53 per cent and Oldham East and Saddleworth with 52 per cent.

One in every two children are living in households with below average incomes.

In a place like Oldham, where youngsters make up 23 per cent of the population, that’s almost 28,000 kids.

The human impact can be stark, from lower levels of school readiness to chronic mental and physical health problems that can delay development.

But here, parents say the first fight is one of the hardest – just keeping food on the table.

“There’s just nothing left over at the end of the month,” Jane Fox, 29, said.

She spoke at a bus stop, mechanically pushing her baby’s pram in one arm while rocking a toddler at her hip with the other.

A single parent, Jane was recently made redundant after she had to keep missing work.

Her youngest kept getting poorly – and sometimes, she simply couldn’t afford the childcare fees, which stack up to £700 a month for part time provisions.

Jane said: “They tell us early education is important.

"They tell us to go to work. I’m literally working but can’t afford the childcare fees.

"What do you expect me to do?

“Then you’ve got rent – £600. You’ve got council tax – £50.

"If you don’t pay those, you’ve got nowhere to live.

"Then there’s water, electric, gas, food.

“My youngest is still on formula.

"I had to stop giving her breast milk, which was the free option, because I couldn’t work while breastfeeding.

"I went back to work when she was three months old because I couldn’t afford to be on maternity leave.”

Since losing her job just after Christmas, Jane has felt the financial pressure even more.

Now she is desperately looking for work.

“I’m making difficult choices all the time,” she said.

“About what we really need. In order to get the things they need – I can’t really get anything that I need.

"I know that might sound really selfish.

“But there’s just things I can’t afford.

"Like I can’t afford train fares. I have to walk as much as possible.

"But you’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do. You put your babies first.”

Another young and single mum, who asked to remain anonymous, said that even with the help of a good support network, squaring the numbers is tough work.

“There’s been times when I’ve sat on my own and just thought: how am I going to do this?” the 23-year-old said.

She became pregnant with her eldest aged just 17 and recently gave birth to her second daughter.

“I do have to ask family members ‘can I borrow £10, can I borrow £20’,” she said.

“It gets to a point where it feels like you’re asking for money nearly every day because of things running out.”

She recalls pawning off a family heirloom – a ring belonging to her mother – so she could afford her daughters’ Christmas presents and a fare to the hospital.

“Just before Christmas, I had to sell my mum’s ring for money.

"That’s how bad it was. It was a difficult decision because it meant a lot and it cost a lot of money.

"But I look at it as: my kids come first. I’ll do what I need to do to provide for them.”

She believes bringing down the cost of essentials for kids would go a long way toward solving the issue.

The Oldham mum said: “It’s the cost of living.

"Prices have gone up so much, we just can’t afford that.

"It’s getting to a point where I’ve seen single parents going in Boots and Tesco stealing things they need.

"Basic necessities shouldn’t be so expensive that you have to get yourself in trouble just to care for your kids.”

Another mother making her way along Featherstall Road shared that her younger brother has also just become a parent.

He has just turned 17.

“He doesn’t get money until he’s 18, so he finds other ways to get money and the things he needs for his daughter…

"Some of those ways aren’t good.

"But I look at it as ‘you’re doing it for your child’.

"If that’s the only thing that’ll provide for your daughter, just go and do it. I have to turn a blind eye.”

Liana, 40, agreed that it was becoming harder and harder to afford the basics.

“Sometimes I make a grocery list and I get to the checkout counter – and I have to decide: no, we can’t have that this week, we’ll have to cut down on this,” she said.

“It’s a lot [of pressure]. Before when we went shopping we’d spend £50 to £80 for a weekly shop.

"Now we need £180 or £200 sometimes.

“There’s no way we can afford any luxuries.

"We just go for the basics, milk, eggs, bread, biscuits for the kids.

"But still we face a problem.”

Liana had to stop working two years ago after a medical issue.

She’s still waiting for an operation to resolve the problem and in the meantime she feels constantly stretched.

“It’s difficult. It’s a lot of mental stress,” she said, with a long sigh.

“I really think the government need to provide more help for single mothers – and for those who can’t work for medical reasons.”

The new Labour government has set up a child poverty taskforce.

The group is due to publish its strategy to tackle the issue across the UK this spring.

A government spokesperson said: “No child should be in poverty – that’s why our Ministerial Taskforce is exploring all levers available across government to give children across the United Kingdom the best start in life, while our Plan for Change will raise living standards across the country.

“As we fix the foundations of the economy, we’re increasing the Living Wage, uprating benefits and supporting 700,000 of the poorest families with children by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate on Universal Credit deductions to help low-income families and make everyone better off.”

But in the meantime, half of kids in Oldham face a bleak reality and a bleak future.

“I grew up here. But I wish I could live anywhere else,” Nadia, on Featherstall Road, says, looking down at her son meaningfully. Zayaan looks at his treasured toy car, then holds it out to us, in offering.

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