The stark facts about North Ayrshire
On Arran, we are not always aware of the desperate conditions that prevail in mainland North Ayrshire. Last week Council members and officers met with Alex Neil, Minister for Housing and Communities and Jim Mather, Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism. Their purpose was to discuss NAC’s seeking of extra assistance from both the UK and Scottish Governments in the light of worsening levels of deprivation and high unemployment in North Ayrshire.
We do not of course know the outcome of that meeting, but a list of facts sent from the NAC press office puts the situation in perspective. The bullet points that follow are a sobering cause for thought.
- North Ayrshire lost around 13,000 jobs in the 1980s between the closure of Glengarnock Steelworks and ICI in Ardeer.
- North Ayrshire would need to secure an additional 19,000 jobs in order to achieve parity with the average number of jobs available in other Scottish local authority areas.
- North Ayrshire sits at the top of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, with one in four people living in a deprived area and one in five children living in a workless household.
- Almost 12 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds in the area are claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance.
- Circa 12 percent of North Ayrshire’s economically active population is out of work, compared to 7.7 percent across Scotland as a whole.
- The Council has asked for North Ayrshire to be considered as a priority for any new pilot projects on employability and/or worklessness.
The photograph shows, from left to right, Jim Mather MSP, Council Leader Cllr David O’Neill, Alex Neil MSP and Cllr. Matthew Brown. We have no idea why anyone is smiling.
