Voices of Hartlepool

A group of Hartlepool residents turning lived experience into action.

Despite the tireless work to mitigate the impact of poverty on children and families in Hartlepool, numbers continue to rise at an alarming rate.

The Voices of Hartlepool is a group of local residents working together to make sure the experiences and ideas of people living in Hartlepool are heard. The group began by bringing people together to talk openly about the issues affecting their everyday lives, from the cost of living and food insecurity to housing, access to services and the places they live.

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Some of the issues raised in our early meetings:

Voices-of-Hartlepool Download

It’s expensive to be poor in Hartlepool
Childcare costs are unaffordable – families (particularly grandparents) are filling this gap.
Costs to move household rubbish (if people don’t drive) and waiting times for goods to be collected.
The hidden additional costs associated with the school day – trips/uniforms/special days are becoming too difficult to fund and cope with.
Living in inappropriate and poor housing in areas where anti-social behaviour is prevalent is a common theme and is raised more significantly by single people who feel like they have very little choice concerning housing.

Using corner shops is expensive – transport to supermarkets (which previously was deemed as a cheaper way to shop) is an additional cost and onerous for people with limited mobility or health needs.
Mental health and wellbeing is becoming more problematic.
People are worried and anxious about paying bills, getting by and/or surviving.
Inability to access services.
Local cash points charge to withdraw money

Voices of Hartlepool is a local response to positively address the issues that people who are struggling to get by face and improve their lives. It is acknowledged that many difficulties are exacerbated by specific policies and cuts to local funding. This piece of work will develop opportunities to raise awareness relating to national policy and external contributing factors, but its focus will remain local.

Voices of Hartlepool intends to:

Ensure the reality of people’s difficulties remains central to developing appropriate responses. The statistical scale of the issues at hand can be accessed and this group will ensure the lived reality of the statistical data. It will bring invaluable insight and knowledge to inform priority concerns and possible solutions in collaboration with the community.
Ensure ‘real-time’ responses to issues raised and safeguard the ability to adapt to current changing landscapes, meeting local needs and continually assessing impact.

Provide opportunities to inform local practice, assess how effective local responses are and if they (a) are meeting the need and/or (b) can be scaled up/replicated in other areas.
Continually encourage the development of relationships with other organisations and potential stakeholders, preventing duplication of work streams and targeting resources.
Identifying our civic and business commissioners – who can we work with to address the priority issues?

The Bread and Butter Thing

The Bread and Butter Thing offers weekly groceries at a fraction of high street prices at the West View hub at West View Community Centre on Mondays at 2:00pm.

For £8.50 they offer roughly £35 worth of food each week including fresh fruit and veg, chilled food for the fridge and cupboard staples such as pasta and cereal. They get their supplies from the stuff that you hear about in the news going to waste: it comes from supermarkets, factories and farms.