'Hardest childhood' town needs 'support' not title

The mayor of the town ranked the hardest place to grow up in England said he would be lodging a formal complaint and the area needed "support" not labels.

Middlesbrough topped the Childhood Lottery report, published by the Children's Commissioner on Monday, which analysed metrics such as education, health and children's views on their area.

But Labour mayor Chris Cooke said the commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, did not engage with him during her visit and said the different bodies needed to work together.

Dame Rachel said she agreed with Cooke's call for "a coming together of minds to address the challenges" and the team reached out to all local authorities in the report.

Cooke said while he was not "immune to the challenges" Middlesbrough faced, he did not think "we need more reports" highlighting the issues.

"What we need is more support," he said, criticising the lack of solutions the report offered.

The report revealed across England 55% of children did not achieve a good standard in maths and English GCSEs and 12% of children said they did not feel safe in their local area.

Dame Rachel urged the prime minister to give larger, local authorities and mayors more of a role in providing better education, health, youth services and policing for children.

Cooke said: "[Dame Rachel] chose not to engage with me, which is incredibly disappointing.

"We already had journalists in the town before I'd even seen the report.

"That doesn't feel like a meaningful relationship with government, that doesn't feel like something where there is a coming together of two minds to want to fix some of the problems that have been identified.

"That just felt like wanting to create a headline.

"I don't think that's fair on our young people."

The mayor said he was working to introduce a youth club to every ward in the town and said it had "one of the widest range of youth provisions" in England.

"We need to make sure that we do nothing other than focus on young people, ensure that they have a better chance and a better opportunity than what we had growing up," Cooke said.

Dame Rachel said she wanted "Middlesbrough to be the best place to grow up" and she had met "brilliant young people" when she spent time in the town.

"I echo the mayor's call for a coming together of minds to address the challenges we face," the commissioner said.

Responding to the report, the Department for Education said it was working to improve childcare support and school standards, and was giving more power to "local leaders" to shape the future of their education.

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