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Monday, 28 February, 2000, 08:58 GMT
Scotland the poor
Burnt-out car
Poverty is impacting many parts of Scotland
Scotland is home to some of the poorest people in the UK, according to a report from a financial information company.

The poorest local authority is Tower Hamlets in east London, where 64% of residents experience the worst forms of hardship.

Parts of Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire and Dundee are also high on the list compiled by Experian.

The study, entitled A Divided Britain?, is based on five years of research into the financial lifestyles of people living in all 413 local authorities throughout the UK.

Housing estate
The rich-poor gap is extreme
The greatest extremes between rich and poor within individual local authorities were found in Aberdeen and Stirling; Camden, Haringey and Westminster in London and Merseyside's Ellesmere Port.

Its author Richard Webber said: "Britain in the year 2000 is still a place of widespread financial hardship, with a prospering middle class peppered by extreme pockets of wealth."

The most poverty-stricken regions are where "a combination of inner city deprivation and rural economic decline compounds the problem of social exclusion", the survey found.

Traditional industries

High poverty levels, particularly in the Clydeside area, can be traced to the decline in the traditional steel and shipbuilding industries over the past 30 years and the small number of owner occupied housing.

Mr Webber said: "House prices have increased in the south in the past few years.

Crane
The run-down of shipbuilding is adding to the problem
"Many people's assets are in their homes and see it as a way of passing wealth on to the next generation.

"In Clydeside, many people would not have the chance to inherit in this way from their parents."

Research in Scotland consistently illustrates the geographical division of wealth, with areas in the west faring particularly badly.

Poverty is also affecting children's health, as a survey carried out at Yorkhill Hospital in Glasgow has shown.

Nearly one in five children attending the hospital is suffering from malnutrition, according to the work done by Professor Laurence Weaver.

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See also:

25 Feb 00 |  Scotland
Poverty 'causes child ill-health'
02 Dec 99 |  Scotland
Glasgow: Bad for your health?
26 Feb 00 |  Scotland
Socialists riding high
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