WITH a council £1.3 billion in debt and services cut to the bone, most people in hard-up Tilbury have given up on voting.
The port town in Essex, which has no pub or public toilets but plenty of boarded-up shops, has one of the lowest turnouts for elections in the country.
Even though it is home to London’s biggest dock, a terminal for cruise liners and a huge Amazon distribution centre, the town’s unemployment rate is close to twice the national average.
New research has revealed that the most deprived areas are less likely to put a cross on a ballot paper than those in the richest ones.
That has long been the case in Tilbury.
In the Riverside ward, which is where the Empire Windrush boat arrived with immigrants from the Caribbean in 1948, only 20 per cent of people voted in the previous local elections.
Last week, Tilbury St Chads in the centre, which is one of the poorest areas in the country, went to the polls, but the most impoverished locals felt abandoned by politicians.
The turnout was just 18.7 per cent, by far the lowest in Thurrock council's poll this month.
With hope in short supply, unemployed local Martin Howlett, 57, carrying a copy of The Sun, told how he’d sold his car, motorbike and caravan because he’d not received any universal credit payments since December.
Martin, who most recently worked as a technician for the London Ambulance service, said: “I didn’t vote. It doesn’t change anything. I have worked all my life and paid in, but now I am struggling to pay my mortgage.
“I’ve not had a universal credit payment since December, I’ve sold my car, caravan and motorbike.
“My dad is dying of cancer, but I have to walk to the hospital because I can’t afford the bus fare.”
We met Martin as he came out of the volunteer-run One Community Centre in Tilbury, which aims to help people find work and to deal with problems such as debt.
They used to have a much larger office, but it was torn down three years ago to build an up-to-date health care facility.
But now that site is a load of rubble in the centre of town and the funding has dried up.
Maria Cabral, 45, who volunteers in the community centre, also didn’t vote.
She says: “We are among the poorest areas, it is very sad to see. Even though we have the port and Amazon there is a lot of unemployment.
“People come in here to collect food stamps, to learn about training opportunities, apprenticeships, possible jobs, because there is no job centre here.”
One local who was born in Tilbury has given up hope.
Sally, 44, who did not wish to give her surname, says: “Tilbury is finished. I wouldn’t walk down the street at night.
“I won’t let my five-year-old son go out on his own here when he gets older.
“They’ve closed down the youth clubs and the only pub is in West Tilbury. There was too much trouble in the pubs in the centre.”
Read more: www.thesun.co.uk/news/2777301...
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