Life in Surrey area with highest child poverty

Woking Borough Council planned to regenerate the area

Residents in the Surrey area where the level of child poverty is highest are turning to community organisations which are seeing increasing levels of “crisis work”.

Nearly 30% of all under-16s living in Sheerwater are growing up in poverty, the highest rate of child poverty in Surrey, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

One resident of the neighbourhood in Woking said the area was “promised the world” in council regeneration plans, but “got nothing”.

Woking Borough Council has been contacted for comment.

Sheerwater’s regeneration, proposed by the council in 2017, has been impacted by the authority effectively declaring itself bankrupt in 2023.

Residents Michael Betcheler and Kaitleen Snelling said the area’s natural spaces were “overgrown” and parks for children were “not very good".

The couple claimed a trampoline bought by a resident for a communal area was taken away by a council-owned company.

They added: “The buildings here need to be finished and you need to let the community come and grow together.”

Sarah Beasley is scheme director at Homestart Runnymede and Woking, a community network supporting families with young children.

She said the charity was making “more than double” the number of referrals to food banks over the last two and a half years.

Ms Beasley added: “There is also a lot more crisis work than before.

“Normally work is very planned and measured but we’re getting so many referrals now where we can’t even wait the three or four weeks it usually takes.

“Now we get cases where we know they are running out of food that day.”

Resident Sharon Whitaker said a new leisure centre, which opened in 2021, was supposed to offer Sheerwater residents a reduced rate, which had not materialised.

She also raised concerns about now-shelved plans for a new health centre.

“They promised us the world and we got nothing,” she said.