The people of Grimsby have revealed what they really think about being named the ‘most work-shy place in Britain’ due to the number of benefits claimants.
Locals told MailOnline that unemployment in the seaside town has ‘always been a problem’ but they are ‘happy enough’. However one person said: ‘I’m just desperate to get out. Everyone is on benefits.’
Unemployment has been rife in the town for as long as anyone can remember and is often linked to the decline in the fishing industry.
But those born and bred in the town still insist that community spirit in many areas is second to none and has only been strengthened by the poverty.
Currently 9.25million Brits are neither in a job or looking for one – equating to more than a fifth of the working-age population. It includes a near-record figure for those signed off with long-term sickness.
New data has found that 53 per cent of people in the East Marsh and Port area of Grimsby were on welfare benefits in the first quarter of this year.
Thirty three per cent of residents claim sickness benefits, 11 per cent are on jobseekers’ allowance and nine per cent receive other benefits.
MailOnline’s audit uncovered similar levels of benefits being doled out in the same district.
Grimsby East Marsh and Port, in North East Lincolnshire, ranked sixth in our table of 7,000-plus suburbs of England and Wales, with a jobless benefit rate of 54 per cent.
Channel 4’s Dispatches this week shone a light onto the topic, naming an area of seaside town Grimsby as Britain’s worklessness capital.
Jackie Foxon said unemployment has always been a problem in Grimsby
Retired Tesco cafe worker Harry Wright, 79, was born and bred in the town and is now trying to keep his mind active after being diagnosed with a bleed on the brain
The people of Grimsby revealed what they really think about being named the ‘most work-shy place in Britain’. Pictured is a garden full of rubbish in the town
One Army veteran who guarded Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess in Spandau prison after the war reckons his home town now looks worse than a bombed out Berlin.
On Grimsby’s own Oxford Street, where houses still change hands for under £50k and sometimes less, the signs of decay are everywhere.
When MailOnline visited the town, we saw toppled bins spew rubbish into gardens and mattresses and old beds rotting outside front doors.
Boarded up shops are around every corner and people can be seen drinking in the street in their pyjamas at gone midday.
Metal store fronts of shops which look like they will never open again are strewn with rubbish and daubed from one end to another in graffiti.
All these have led residents to compare the East Marsh area of Grimsby with living in an impoverished East European country.
Jackie Foxon, 43, said: ‘It is not terrible. There are worse places in the world to live. It could just be better.
‘It has gone downhill though, and everything seems to be closing. The life expectancy figures are shocking.
‘I will come back and haunt everyone if I go at that age. Unemployment has always been a problem and a lot of it is to do with the decline in the fishing industry.
‘But a lot of people don’t want jobs. I am sure if a lot of the unemployed tried hard enough they could find a job. It is just having the right spirit.’
Alan Blackburn, 89, a retired wood machinist, reckons his own road, Durham Street, is now one of the roughest areas in town
Stuart Wiltshire, 87, a retired youth worker, said: ‘Grimsby has been the butt of a lot of jokes’
Boarded up shops are around every corner of the port town
MailOnline saw toppled bins spew rubbish into gardens
A metal railing holding back weeds in front of a boarded up shop in the town
Jess Fisher, 24, said: ‘It’s a s**thole. You just have to look out of your window – it’s awful. I’m from Wakefield originally and I hate it here.
‘My mum moved here ages ago when I was little and I’m just desperate to get out. Everyone is on benefits.
‘I am not surprised by the new statistics. I am just baffled why anyone would want to come here in the first place.’
Elllie Hardy added: ‘It is all right in certain areas. We have a lovely community where we are. People who have nowt stick together. We just need investment in the area.’
Alan Blackburn, 89, a retired wood machinist, reckons his own road, Durham Street, is now one of the roughest areas in town.
He said: ‘I saw someone drinking a beer the other day who then just through the glass into the air and walked off. All respect has gone.
‘There are mattresses and junk just left all over the place. I am not surprised people are dying early and half the town is on the dole.
‘It is a s**thole. It has just gone down and down. Everything has gone to pot around here. All the Government has done is stop my winter fuel allowance and give a big rise to the train drivers.
‘I did my National Service in Berlin after the war and was stationed at Spandau Prison looking after Rudolf Hess.
‘We had just flattened Berlin at the time. Now Germany is on the up and up and my home town is on the down and down.’
Retired Tesco cafe worker Harry Wright, 79, was born and bred in the town and is now trying to keep his mind active after being diagnosed with a bleed on the brain.
He said: ‘I have worked here all my life. I do not go out much these days because of what you see around you.
‘I have always tried to keep fit. I don’t smoke. Because I have a bleed on the brain I try to keep my mind active by playing X-box games. ‘
Stuart Wiltshire, 87, a retired youth worker, said: ‘Grimsby has been the butt of a lot of jokes in its time.
Baiba Lauksteine, 42, a mother-of-four originally from Latvia, said: ‘It is okay here. I came here from Latvia and so far, so good. But it is sad that everything is closing down’
Many residents were seen drinking on the streets in broad daylight
Leia Wright, 25, said: ‘I have lived here all my life. But depression is high around here’
A row of boarded up shops in Grimsby in the middle of the day
‘But we are happy enough here. The prices are all right in the shop and when I came out the armed forces you could afford a far better house here than a lot of places.
‘I am concerned that there seems to be a lot of shops closing now. But I have been here since 1977 so we don’t really know anywhere else.
‘I moved here to be closer to my parents and generally speaking I have always found it all right.’
Baiba Lauksteine, 42, a mother-of-four originally from Latvia, said: ‘It is okay here. I came here from Latvia and so far, so good. But it is sad that everything is closing down.
‘The town looks rough compared when I first moved here when it had a lot more life. I am hoping things will get back to how they were.
‘The thing is there are jobs but a lot of people do not want to work. There are factories all around so it is not like there are no jobs.
‘I know it is not a great place to bring kids up but it is down to the parents to teach them whether to make something of their lives or walk the streets penniless.’
Leia Wright, 25, said: ‘I have lived here all my life. But depression is high around here. Our neighbours and us both had a suicide in the family.
‘So we leave flowers on each others’ doorsteps. There are a lot of close knit communities around here. There rough areas around here but we look after one another.’
A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: ‘We’ve inherited a spiralling benefits bill with millions of people with a long-term illness or disability out of work and not getting the support they need.
‘We’re determined to fix this, and through our Get Britain Working White Paper we’ll ensure the system is better supporting people to get them into and stay in work – and crucially, bring down the benefits bill.’
It comes as Sir Keir Starmer pledged to crack down hard on the ‘bulging benefits bill blighting our society’.
The PM promised to make sweeping changes’ to try to tame the £137 billion bill for welfare benefits – including a blitz on cheats and those who ‘game the system’ – vowing: ‘No more business as usual.’
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