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Middlesbrough Mayor hits out at ‘worst place to live’ report

Middlesbrough Mayor David Budd told the Gazette that the report labelling the town as the “worst place to live for girls” was based on outdated statistics.

The study, conducted by the charity Plan International UK, looked at a number of factors including child poverty, educational attainment and teenage pregnancy rates.

But Mr Budd said: “The figures used in this report are from a number of years ago and our success in dealing with them is proven by more recent figures that demonstrate that this year GCSE results have bucked the national trend by going up significantly, NEET [not in education, employment or training] numbers are down and teenage pregnancy figures have been recorded as the lowest on record.

“Middlesbrough, in common with many areas, has a number of deep-rooted issues that we are dealing with.”

“We are seeing massive levels of investment in regeneration terms, hundreds of millions of pounds into the local economy.

“That doesn’t happen unless people, both inside Middlesbrough and outside Middlesbrough, believe it is a great place to live, work and invest and fortunately for us they do.”

Middlesbrough was ranked as the worst place to be a girl in England and Wales, followed by Blackpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Liverpool.

The best place for girls is Waverly in Surrey, according to the charity, followed by Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire and Chiltern in Buckinghamshire.

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