Middlesbrough ranked hardest place for children to grow up

Wayne Mason, the chief executive of the Linx Youth Project which had been helping young people in Middlesbrough for more than 30 years, said cuts to youth sector funding had not helped matters in Middlesbrough.

“It is incredibly painful, it’s actually quite disappointing naturally,” he said.

“I mean what the report doesn’t go into is the amount of work that’s going on to make life better for youngsters.

“We’ve got some incredible people doing some incredible work right across Middlesbrough and it’s just very sad that none of that was acknowledged.”

In the report, Dame Rachel de Souza, Children’s Commissioner for England, called for a minimum standard for children’s services and said an emergency fund for improvements were needed.

She urged the Prime Minister to give larger local authorities and mayors more of a role in providing better education, health, youth services and policing for children.

In response to the report, Adamson said: “There are real challenges for some children and families, but this is about the circumstances around young people, not their talent, their ambition or their potential.

“I see resilient, ambitious young people every single day and the challenges are real, but it shouldn’t define our young people.

“I think their postcode shapes their starting point, but it never defines where they’re going.”