TV documentary series Benefits Street has gripped and often horrified viewers
with its scenes of life on one of Britain’s most welfare-dependent roads.
But James Turner Street in Birmingham – the subject of the Channel 4 series –
is just one of many deprived areas throughout Britain.
New figures show unemployment is falling faster than at any time since 1997 — and last week Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith claimed this vindicated the Government’s tough approach to welfare.
But an investigation by The Sun on Sunday has found four other streets around the UK where residents see things VERY differently.
Here we hear from people living in these troubled roads in Hastings, Wolverhampton, Middlesbrough and Manchester.
Benefits Street continues on Channel 4 tomorrow at 9pm.
'Houses are derelict. I've got rats and cockroaches for neighbours' SHAUN BARLOW grins as he poses clutching a bag of beer cans before inviting us into his home.
Then, cuddled up inside with partner Toni-Marie Reed, 26, and surrounded by empty bottles, cans and cigarette butts, he says: “We need David Cameron out.
“He goes on about cuts — we’ve had to cut back from four bottles of vodka a day to just one between us. We need help.”
The pair have just come out of hospital suffering from “alcohol-related issues”.
Shaun has been unemployed for three years. He gets £106 a week benefits.
He adds: “If David Cameron helped us deal with our alcohol addiction, then I could get a job.
“The TV cameras want to come around here. We’ve got a smashed front window we can’t fix and if you go out at night there are prostitutes offering you sex for £15.
“We’ve got no heating, we can’t afford it, which is one of the reasons why we drink, to stay warm. Our days generally start by going to the chemist then sitting in drinking.”
Wentworth Street sits in a forgotten part of Middlesbrough — the UK town with the highest unemployment rate.
It is surrounded by rows of houses that have been derelict for 20 years.
Around a third of the street’s 60 homes, built towards the end of the 19th Century, are now boarded up and around 80 per cent of its remaining inhabitants live on benefits — including Michael McNicholas, 34, who has been out of work and claiming benefits for five years due to depression.
He says: “This is the real Benefits Street. Someone even put the words ‘Benefits Street’ in graffiti on a wall, which was later scrubbed out. The show glorifies life on benefits but people watching don’t realise they’re drinking so much to forget how hard life can be.”
