Welcome to Scrounger Central.

 

According to the Office for National Statistics, Dalby Square in Margate, Kent, is top of the heap when it comes to neighbourhoods where work is a four-letter word.

An astonishing 62 PER CENT of its residents claim some form of handout—that's almost EIGHT TIMES the national average of eight per cent.

Bristling with sicknote wavers, benefit tourists, jobseeker's allowance claimants and people on income support, it stands as a fortress against government pledges to hit the workshy hard.

 

Here, at the heart of the town's notorious Cliftonville West ward, a quarter of people are on the sick and a fifth on the dole even though the local Jobcentre has hundreds of vacancies.

 

Our investigators knocked on doors at 39 of the 97 flats making up one side of Dalby Square.

 

Behind them we found just NINE people working. Ex-estate agent Mark Brody, 44, (number 6) told us he'd been on the sick for nearly three years, pocketing £490 a month in benefits.

 

The dad-of-four said: "I got a divorce and had a breakdown—but to be honest, there's absolutely nothing wrong with me."

 

Next, David Steedman, 25, (number 16) said he'd been on the sick two years, due to "something like depression."

He says he won't work until he finds a job that "suits his hours."

He is now busily applying for £262.50 monthly housing benefit after moving out of his sister's place because "she has a noisy rabbit".

 

Clint Lindley, 43, (number 6) admits spending his days "listening to music, watching TV and drinking" since getting incapacity benefit 18 months ago.

 

It's all bad news for Prime Minister Gordon Brown who has pledged to stop "unacceptable scrounging". He wants to slash two-thirds off the 2.6 million people currently on the sick.

 

This week a government report revealed that ill-health is costing Britain £100 billion every year—more than the entire NHS budget. Every day one in ten people are off work sick or claiming incapacity benefit.

 

Brown also wants to reduce the numbers on long-term incapacity and unemployment benefit, estimated to cost taxpayers more than a staggering £12 billion a year.

In January the PM announced he wanted everyone on benefits to be forced to take a skills test then be offered either a job suited to their abilities or a training course.

If they refuse their benefits will be cut. Brown described it as a "carrot and stick" approach.

 

He might need more than a carrot and stick in Margate, Isle of Thanet, where they held a job fair last year—and just FIVE people turned up.

 

Ex-convict Ed Wright, 49, (number 6) has been on the dole for 20 YEARS since completing a 10-year jail term for "fighting and things". He claims: "I look for jobs—we have to regularly stay on jobseeker's." But in 20 years he's failed to find a suitable opportunity.

 

Former plasterer Thomas Brain, 50, (number 4/3) blames foreigners for his plight. He whinged: "I've been on jobseeker's for eight months but the immigrants are getting the jobs. I was a plasterer but my back started acting up, so I went on disability."

His neighbour, Ahmed Ahmedi, 32, from Afghanistan and on jobseeker's, was quite put out about losing his pizza shop job because he went on a TWO-AND-A-HALF-MONTH holiday. "It was gone when I got back," he complained.

 

Next we spoke to Czech mum-of-four Eva Horvatova, 33 (number 8). Her family came here eight years ago. Her dad is on disability benefit with a "bad leg" and her partner is on jobseeker's allowance.

 

They get £710 a month in benefits. "We are gypsy people and in the Czech Republic there was a lot of discrimination. It is better here," she said.

 

Britain's weird benefit culture means Frank Vereecken is better off taking state cash than getting a part-time job on doctor's advice.

 

In contrast to his neighbours, carpet fitter Frank, 57, (number 6) wants to work, even after two heart attacks. He is on jobseeker's but said: "I can do a few hours of work a day, but once you take off taxes and transport costs, it's not worth it for me to get a part-time job."

 

Julian Wilkes, 25, (number 12) said he'd been on jobseeker's for six months. "Sometimes I look for work, but I don't get much joy so I just go down to the beach or sit around playing on my PlayStation." His partner, 47-year-old mum-of-three Maria Price, (number 12) had been on income support since her twins were born.

"But when they turned 16 I had to go off that and on to jobseeker's. I want a job but there's nothing here."

 

Funny that, because the local Jobcentre has LOADS of them. We found scores of positions on offer paying up to £11 an hour— almost DOUBLE the £5.52 hourly minimum wage.

 

They include a dump truck driver at £11 an hour, a driver at £10, an accounts administrator at £9, a cook at £8, a labourer at £6 and a kitchen assistant at £5.52 an hour. Salaried jobs on offer included an £18,000pa sales assistant, a £15,000 cook, a £24,000 computer technician, a £17,000 support worker and a £30,000 site worker.

And the Kent and Sussex Courier is advertising plenty of local work, including jobs for a housekeeper, a teaching assistant, shopworkers and a handyperson. News of the massive numbers of benefits claimants in Dalby Square angered hard-working neighbours.

 

Financial advisor Grahame Keatley, 47, who lives a few streets away, said: "It's not right. There should be tighter regulations. I have worked for 31 years without taking a single day off. We put our kids through university without asking for a single handout."

 

Builder Mike Wilson, 43, said: "It seems like everyone around here is on benefits yet I see them in the pub and walking around. I don't understand why they don't work." Chancellor Alistair Darling has said from April 2010 those on long-term incapacity will have to take tests to ensure they really need the payments. But transforming places like Dalby Square will be no easy task.

 

Mark Wallace, campaign director for the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "These figures are a shocking example of how governments have tried to use incapacity benefit to hide unemployment figures. People on benefits gathering together like this is a strange phenomenon but something that's becoming all too common.

 

"There are areas of Britain turning into benefits ghettos."

 

Source: News of the world

When will the journalists who wrote this story declare what they do to reduce their tax bill?

Each one of them unemployed losers who are claiming benefits make me laugh! They try and think of the best excuse to get benefits. If they can make the effort to get out the house to get their benefits, then why can't they at least try and look for a job. It's just mainly laziness! Those jobs in the job center are worth applying for. I think schools should do the best to encourage pupils to get jobs after studies. I know it's more middle aged people in that article who are jobless but that town really needs to do something about the jobless.

 

It is time that a system was bought in where unemployed people do community work in return for their benefits or and maybe a bit extra on top or get no money at all, I don't want to spend my tax money on keeping people sitting at home doing nothing so community programs where unemployed people are putting something back into the community instead of take take take is the way forward

Edited March 25, 200817 yr by Vic Vega