BOLTON has seen one of the biggest rises in child poverty in the North West over the last four years, new analysis reveals.

The analysis, in a report commissioned by the End Child Poverty coalition, shows 39 per cent of children aged 16 and under in Bolton were living in families with low incomes in 2018-19 – compared to 32.7 per cent in 2014-15.

This 6.3 per cent percentage point rise is one of the biggest in the North West.

The research combined recent figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) with local housing costs to produce new estimates for low-income families – those earning less than 60 per cent of the median income.

The report, which found almost a third of children across the UK live below the breadline, is based on DWP data from March, and estimates of the effect of housing costs on poverty rates by Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Social Policy.

The figures show a rise in child poverty in nearly every local authority in the North West since 2014-15, with last year’s highest rate in Manchester (40.6 per cent).

In Bolton, the number of children in low-income families rose from 19,067 in 2014-15, to 23,727 last year.

Across the UK, the proportion of children in low-income families rose from 28 per cent to 30 per cent between 2014-15 and 2018-19.