Well, that was a very interesting experience!

It was great to meet so many people and hand out the Poverty Information Factsheet to so many (almost a thousand people!)

Whilst some people walked by without wanting to stop or take a Sheet, so many people took one and stopped and chatted. People were certainly shocked by the facts about local and national poverty rates and the appalling return of Victorian Era diseases!

It was particularly humbling to spend time chatting with local people who are affected by poverty. Indeed, early in the day, two different young couples (each with a little one) stopped and shared their experiences – the problems of working insecure zero-hour contracts, moving to Universal Credit (and having to wait 5-6 weeks with no money whatsoever), social housing issues, food poverty and not being able to pay bills or heat their homes.

I’m incredibly grateful to all those who so generously came to help out today, handing out the Factsheets and chatting with the public.

I’m so pleased that the event has attracted significant publicity. It was on Wessex FM throughout the day, tomorrow it’ll be on BBC Radio Solent, the Dorset Echo article is already online and will be in tomorrow’s newspaper, we streamed an interview via Facebook Live on the Weyforward Facebook page and another that’s on Peter Lythgoe’s Zzip media page, and the poverty information has been widely disseminated via Dorset Eye and via Unity News.

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Tom Lane

Good work @TomLane…thanks for sticking up for people and families in #Weymouth and #Portland that have been driven into appalling poverty in the one of the richest countries in the world (the UK).