The decades-long scandal of Bognor's 'invisible' poverty

One in four Bognor children living in poverty in 2016, in one of the most affluent shire counties in the country.   If that doesn't make people sit back and take a long hard look at this Town, nothing will.

A new problem, caused by Austerity, the 2008-crash, Labour overspending?    Not a bit of it -  the problem has been here for decades, at least since 1980 when I first moved here.    Within 3 years I had started with others the Bognor Fun Bus, based on work over years by a playscheme summer programme, and all sessions in what we saw even then as areas with marked deprivation amongst families and children.

No evidence then, except what we saw.   Cyclical poverty, poor educational outcomes, low health - parts of Bognor, Bersted, Barnham, Yapton and Littlehampton.    We saw first-hand that people were struggling where the general area seemed less affected than most by Thatcher's ravages.     It showed in odd and surprising ways - noting our boys in rugby teams were smaller for age, less well-fed than from ....  Chichester, Haywards Heath etc.   "You noticed that too" as Mr Francis, one-time games master at Felpham CC, and he could find nothing in County stats etc.

As the information age kicked in, we began to see other, statistical confirmation - poor school, GCSE results, BR school taken into Special Measures, poorer health stats and, perhaps most defining of all for me as a then-Arun Councillor for Pevensey, the discovery that between an Aldwick  ward the other side of West Meads drive and my Ward there was a 15 year difference in average life expectancy.   Truly shocking, as I termed it, 'Third World Bognor' and got a lot of flack.

What WAS West Sussex Council doing that the educational malaise had to await a Labour Government acting to begin CHANGE and to invest £35 million in the Regis school, let alone Sure Start and all the other local examples of that investment in a better society?   Venal, smug, and sowing the seeds of the current crisis.  Don't put it all down to cuts, the sickness was there well before.

Nothing this Government has done has gone anywhere near recognising the issue, our MP, a Minister, silent, and supporting cuts which make life harder for those already in poverty and hardship or near the line.

An-almost criminal neglect of affordable housing, a regeneration which so far has got nowhere, no recognition that The Regis School is a decent outcome of previous investment by a Labour government.

Young people are disengaged from society and the political system, and the recent Referendum saw them not voting and not helped at all by the voting registration changes - surely, as they are at school and college until 18, the institutions should and could mount efforts within student attendance hours to get them registered at 17?   Plus elementary education that we vote for MPs to make decisions in Parliament, not by referendum, like that or not, that's  the system.

That is as important in their lives as being VACCINATED, the power to be engaged and have a voice.    Especially those on the bottom of the pile.  

Bognor will see no meaningful Revival (those words 'regeneration' and 'redevelopment' are now devalued in this town) until we recognise the need to raise those in poverty, and especially their children, onto a basis of equality.   Economics demand this - low earners and low spenders are unhelpful in the economy; social cohesion, public health, education for the technical age - all those depend on it also.

Until we raise Bognor from the third-world status some experience, and until we look to our young people's futures, this Town will languish.   Those who have the vote have a duty to act beyond the selfish and the personal, beyond fear of the stranger and of change, to drive this town's future forwards.   There's been too much 'what about me?' and we need to see more 'what can we do to make things for the better?'

Austerity NEVER was "we are all in this together" whilst the few benefitted and the majority did not, especially in this Town those who have been made invisible by negligence in housing, education, employment and health.   One is reminded of the Arun Councillor, "there are empty homes in Wigan" so let them eat (Eccles) cakes ....