Levelling up ‘needs to address city’s issues’
LEVELLING up proposals must address Leicester’s particular problems or risk failing, community groups say.
A White Paper on the government proposals expected this year has been pushed back until next.
But a poll commissioned by the national charity Hope Not Hate found 59 per cent of respondents did not think the Prime Minister would succeed in reducing regional inequalities.
Martin Buchanan, chief executive of e2, a community hub in Leicester that provides youth projects, a food bank and other services, said: “I’ve been working in this area for 20 years and the issues around things like youth services and poverty supersede me by decades.
“We have had social and economic divide for ages.”
Despite the government claiming a significant increase in employment nationwide, Mr Buchanan said more needs to change.
“We’ve got more people employed than not in this area now but people are still struggling to make ends meet because they’re not being paid enough,” he said.
He said that while the idea of devolving powers was exciting, based on previous government promises “these things can often just be vague, empty words”.
“Right now, we don’t know whether our youth services will survive past Christmas. We need plans but we need them long-term not just short-term thinking,” he said.
Suleman Nagdi, of Leicester’s Federation of Muslim Organisation, said a decline in employment affecting all communities needed to be addressed, particularly in the garment sector which faced scrutiny during the national lockdown in light of the Boohoo scandal.
“There’s now a shortage of workers across a number of sectors including the care sector, building and, in Leicester, the garment industry was badly affected,” he said.
He said specific sectors would need considerable help, post-pandemic.
“I think it will be hard to level up if we don’t have the apparatus to do that,” he said.
“What we’re seeing is more foodbanks and inflation is going up, so there are concerns there as well,” he said.
Salma Ravat, manager of homelessness charity One Roof, said deprivation in the city and other areas of the country should be addressed together as they are all connected.
On the Hope Not Hate-commissioned survey, she said: “Where there is financial deprivation there is sometimes a danger of far-right views that create a wedge, this ‘us and them’ thing.
“Society always needs a bogeyman, someone to blame, and that tends to be minority communities,” she said.
Although levelling up promises to reduce inequalities, Ms Ravat said that with the rise in inflation “the future doesn’t seem very pleasant”.
CALL FOR ACTION, NOT ‘EMPTY WORDS’