TENDRING Council is set to devise a new strategy to tackle the high number of children living in poverty in the district.

A damning report, published by the Campaign to End Child Poverty last year, revealed almost 45 per cent of children in parts of the Tendring district were living in poverty.

At last Friday’s council cabinet meeting, councillors agreed to look into updating its children and young people’s strategy in an effort to “break the cycles of poverty”.

The new strategy will focus on tackling child poverty, cutting the number of people aged 17 to 19 not in education, employment or training, and “safeguarding” children from harm.

Measures that could be taken to help cut child poverty include providing grants to the Citizens Advice Bureau, home improvement grants for substandard properties, maintaining checks on the standards of bedsits and bulldozing uninhabitable homes.

Read the full story in this week's Standard, out now.