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Hard Times: One UK town,s struggle in the age of austerity
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Hard Times: One UK town,s struggle in the age of austerity::
From the quiet corner of a library nestled in the heart of Charles Dickens country, Vince Maple,s calm voice belies his frustration.
Of late, he explains, it has been the worst of times for his hometown in southeast England, situated just 50 kilometres (30 miles) southeast of the capital, London.
Perched by the River Medway, Chatham was once the stomping ground of the famed author and, for centuries, a shipbuilding powerhouse courtesy of the local dockyard.
Now, however, it lies testament to years of recent struggle; home to a tired high street and surrounding residential roads where dilapidated houses rub up, row-upon-row, against one another.
The decline can be traced back to the 1980s, when the dockyard was closed down and some 7,000 jobs evaporated almost overnight. "We,ve never replaced that," Maple, a local councillor since 2007, admits softly as the library empties around him, casting young students and volunteers out into the biting cold of a winter night.
But it was in the last decade, he says, that things really took a turn for the worse as the town was ravaged by the United Kingdom,s age of austerity, forcing its poorest residents to confront levels of hardship that echo Victorian-era Britain.
"Austerity to me is a working person having to access a charity to have enough food to eat," explains Maple, who is running as the main opposition Labour Party,s candidate for the constituency of Chatham and Aylesford in the UK,s upcoming December 12 general election.
"We are one of the biggest economies on the planet, so how on earth we have got to the situation where people who are deemed to be in good quality jobs are having to access charity to survive is just ludicrous."
In 1945, after World War II had drawn to a close in Europe, the newly-elected left-leaning Labour Party government immediately moved to reshape the country after successfully campaigning on a promise to tackle poverty.
Under the leadership of then-Prime Minister Clement Attlee, it passed a series of measures designed to take care of the British people from "the cradle to the grave", creating over a period of six years what has since come to be known as the "Welfare State".
Since then, healthcare has been free at the point of use in the UK,s National Health Service, financial protections have been afforded to the unemployed, and public housing provided to those who are homeless, or deemed to be most at the need of it.
But recently, the system has been creaking; edging closer than ever to breaking point as successive Conservative-led governments have overseen sweeping budget cuts as part of an austerity agenda ostensibly aimed at rebalancing Britain,s books in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis.In Medway, the unitary authority under which Chatham falls, the number of people living on the streets has risen by at least 171 percent this decade, according to the latest figures compiled by Kent County Council.
Amid the crisis, local organisations such as the homeless shelter run by Liz Shaw and Marc Silvester have stepped in to try and help out.
Just off the high-street, which is lined by budget stores and shuttered-up shops, the pair have bunkered down in the corner of the shelter,s supply room to weigh up One Big Family,s importance to its users. @Worldnews
Hard Times: One UK town,s struggle in the age of austerity::
From the quiet corner of a library nestled in the heart of Charles Dickens country, Vince Maple,s calm voice belies his frustration.
Of late, he explains, it has been the worst of times for his hometown in southeast England, situated just 50 kilometres (30 miles) southeast of the capital, London.
Perched by the River Medway, Chatham was once the stomping ground of the famed author and, for centuries, a shipbuilding powerhouse courtesy of the local dockyard.
Now, however, it lies testament to years of recent struggle; home to a tired high street and surrounding residential roads where dilapidated houses rub up, row-upon-row, against one another.
The decline can be traced back to the 1980s, when the dockyard was closed down and some 7,000 jobs evaporated almost overnight. "We,ve never replaced that," Maple, a local councillor since 2007, admits softly as the library empties around him, casting young students and volunteers out into the biting cold of a winter night.
But it was in the last decade, he says, that things really took a turn for the worse as the town was ravaged by the United Kingdom,s age of austerity, forcing its poorest residents to confront levels of hardship that echo Victorian-era Britain.
"Austerity to me is a working person having to access a charity to have enough food to eat," explains Maple, who is running as the main opposition Labour Party,s candidate for the constituency of Chatham and Aylesford in the UK,s upcoming December 12 general election.
"We are one of the biggest economies on the planet, so how on earth we have got to the situation where people who are deemed to be in good quality jobs are having to access charity to survive is just ludicrous."
In 1945, after World War II had drawn to a close in Europe, the newly-elected left-leaning Labour Party government immediately moved to reshape the country after successfully campaigning on a promise to tackle poverty.
Under the leadership of then-Prime Minister Clement Attlee, it passed a series of measures designed to take care of the British people from "the cradle to the grave", creating over a period of six years what has since come to be known as the "Welfare State".
Since then, healthcare has been free at the point of use in the UK,s National Health Service, financial protections have been afforded to the unemployed, and public housing provided to those who are homeless, or deemed to be most at the need of it.
But recently, the system has been creaking; edging closer than ever to breaking point as successive Conservative-led governments have overseen sweeping budget cuts as part of an austerity agenda ostensibly aimed at rebalancing Britain,s books in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis.In Medway, the unitary authority under which Chatham falls, the number of people living on the streets has risen by at least 171 percent this decade, according to the latest figures compiled by Kent County Council.
Amid the crisis, local organisations such as the homeless shelter run by Liz Shaw and Marc Silvester have stepped in to try and help out.
Just off the high-street, which is lined by budget stores and shuttered-up shops, the pair have bunkered down in the corner of the shelter,s supply room to weigh up One Big Family,s importance to its users. @Worldnews
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