A COMMUNITY is to pull together to try and alleviate the effects of child poverty on a Wrexham estate.

Last month The End Child Poverty coalition published child poverty rates for each constituency, ward and local authority across Britain, with Caia Park wards featuring as three of Wales' four highest.

Three of the five wards in Caia Park estate are at 47.9 per cent - meaning almost half the children in the Queensway, Wynnstay and Cartrefle wards are deemed to be in child poverty, according to research carried out by the charity Child Poverty.

At this month's meeting of Caia Park Community Council, chairman and Wynnstay ward Cllr Malcolm King sought backing from fellow members to start talks on how to tackle the issue.

He suggested community leaders, youth workers and headteachers of schools on the estate meet to discuss what they could all do to reduce the effects of child poverty on the estate.

"Three out of the four top places for child poverty in Wales are in Caia Park", said Cllr King.

"It's such a shocking statistic and it is something that Wrexham should feel ashamed of.

"What we and the Caia Park partnership want to do is start the process of debate in Caia Park, with children's organisations like The Venture, and schools.

"It would be about getting professionals together, for example headteachers, to see what can be done about this."

He added: "It could possibly lead to a Caia park child poverty action group to lessen the effects of poverty on children in Caia Park."

A child is said to live in poverty if they are in a family living on less than 60 per cent of median household income. According to the End Child Poverty coalition, 60 per cent of median income (after housing costs) is around £248 per week.

The research was carried out by Professor Donald Hirsch and Dr Juliet Stone at the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University.

They applied a technique called Small Area Estimation used by other research bodies such as the Office for National Statistics and World Bank, which considers the relationship between large national surveys and local administrative data to calculate levels of child poverty at the local level.

Members supported Cllr King's plan which he hopes will begin before the end of this school year.