Bognor Regis Herald — Social Mobility report shames our Councils
by Jan Cosgrove
The Social Mobility Commission new report naming Arun and Chichester as blackspots re social mobility for disadvantaged people and families should come as no surprise to anyone who, like myself, has encountered the abiding phenomenon which has marked my experience of living here since 1979.
It did not take me too long to recognise that this is a mainly quite affluent area, but with deprivation in both the rural and urban parts of the District. Let me put it crudely — if you live in such an area and are disadvantaged, you are ‘invisible’. In other words, there is, in my experience, a reluctance to recognise such issues, and when I first raised it in the 1980’s I was told I was exaggerating. “Nothing to see here”. (A bit like my concern re kids being exploited in our seafront arcades — I was criticising local businessmen, after a Macdonalds worker in the High Street told me paedophiles brought boys there on what he called ‘the Macdonalds run’ ….)
As a Councillor, I got stick for saying, at a Labour Party Conference, that there was a 15 year age-difference in life expectancy between the ward I then represented at Arun and the adjacent one, separated by a road — “Third World Bognor” was the cause of the annoyance. Working for 28 years with the Fun and deploying it to some of the worst affected areas, such as Pevensey and Orchard Wards, Yapton, Wick Estate etc, I saw at first hand what some would apparently not want to see.
And how was it that our major secondary school with poor results had to be taken into special measures? Luckily a Labour Government invested £35 million to give us The Regis School as a new start and things are improving. Listening to some who blame Labour for the 2008 Crash (not US capital), you’d say that they ‘overspent’ but which of them says that new school could be described as that, overspending? Not West Sussex and Arun Tory Councillors for sure. Like many across the country when Dodgy Dave brought in Austerity-Con, Tory MPs were the first to squeal when he announced Labour’s school spending plans were to be axed in their areas.
Local Tory ideologues presided with enthusiasm over the sale of at least 3,000 Arun Council houses under Thatcher-milk-snatcher, leaving us with a huge problem of non-supply for the neediest families etc. So, they built new Council houses in Bognor recently to replace those lost. TWO. Whoopee-effing-do …. so, at least 2998 to go.
Perhaps the worst indicator I saw early on came about re my eldest son’s liking for playing rugby at Felpham Comprehensive in the early/mid 80’s. I attended some matches locally as they played other schools in Sussex. He is not a small lad but I noted that the kids from the other areas looked BIGGER and that also applied re the Fun Bus working with kids who attended the old BRCC. I mentioned this to the then-games master at FCC, Mr Francis, and he said, “You noticed it too?” We shared the awful idea that POVERTY and deprivation/ disadvantage were the root causes, cycled through families and generations. He told me I wouldn’t find any mention or recognition of this in County records etc.
YES, the kids of the same age from Chi, Haywards Heath etc were larger and heavier in their early teens.
As a Councillor I remain concerned that this underlying issue is still not properly address by national, county and district government, all Tory at this time, a Triple Whammy for Bognor’s most needy people, and where Universal Dis-Credit has made many so much poorer and some will face a VERY bleak Christmas. We need a Town Regeneration which repairs and grows this Town from the grass roots, it must go wider than two sites in the town centre. And it has to start with young and with those who have lost out the most and who need to gain the most.
