Rising costs and job cuts could see up to a million South East residents living in very low income areas, says South East England Councils (SEEC) Chairman Cllr Paul Carter.

A new SEEC report shows that, pre-recession, the South East already had 850,000 people in the 20% most income-deprived areas – before counting the latest job losses. Now the South East is being hit hard by private sector closures such as Pfizer in Kent, and public spending cuts in towns where more than 40% work in the public sector.

The report calls on Government to invest in helping the South East create more private sector jobs and improve conditions in disadvantaged areas.

Cllr Carter said: “Everyone assumes the South East is wealthy but our work shows we have substantial numbers of people living in deprivation. People forget the size and scale of problems in the South East. For example we have almost twice as many children in income deprived homes as the North East of England.

“We also have the third highest number of public jobs in the country and three of our districts are among those with the highest share of public jobs in England.”

He added: “SEEC strongly supports the Government’s plan to create new private sector jobs to drive the economy forward but we can’t do this alone. We need public investment to help us improve the prospects for the hundred of thousands of South East residents suffering from deprivation, rising costs and job losses.”

Key South East findings in SEEC’s report include:

• 850,000 residents live in the 20% most income-deprived areas in England
• 240,000 children live in income-deprived households (122,500 in the North East)
• 230,000 over 60s live in income-deprived households (131,200 in the North East)
• Out of 354 English councils, Hastings is the 30th most deprived and Thanet the 65th
• There are 641,000 public sector jobs in the South East. Only London and the North West have more
• In 3 areas more than 40% of jobs are in the public sector: Oxford (46%), Hastings (43%) and Canterbury (41%).