Editorial 'Action on Poverty and Hardship in the English Potteries'

This special edition of the Journal of Local Economy is focussed on Action on Poverty and Hardship in the Potteries. The special issue draws on a range of local and national expertise which emerged from an Action on Poverty and Hardship Conference held in Stoke-on-Trent in June 2022. Stoke on Trent is a post-industrial city, home of the once thriving potteries industry and a creative hub for the region. Post-industrial cities can have higher mortality rates, which can correlate with people being engaged in riskier unhealthy behaviours (van der Pol, Walsh and McCartney, 2015). Stoke-on-Trent has acknowledged health and social inequality challenges (Hurst et al, 2012; Murray & Leighton, 2008; MacLeod & Jones, 2018) and is the sixteenth most deprived area in England, with child poverty rates sitting at 43% (Etherington, 2021). The citywide deprivation issues are one of the reasons that historically the city was awarded a health action zone to bolster innovative commission to address health and social inequalities (Goldstraw and Page, forthcoming). Sadly, such government initiatives were short lived, but a legacy of change activism towards tackling poverty lives on in the city today, which is reflected across the articles in this special edition. With the cost of living increasing and employment incomes being less than average, and the further exacerbation of the negative legacy of the pandemic continuing to bite, it is no wonder that city resources are strained and in need of levelling-up uplift. Stoke-on-Trent is a well utilised dispersal area for asylum seekers in the UK (Sturge, 2019b) and dispersal areas are more commonly recognised as impoverished (Easton and Butcher, 2018; Pearl and Zetter, 1999; Cruddas, 2007). Whilst the city has positive green spaces (Gidlow, Ellis and Bostock, 2012), it had also been named by the World Health Organisation in 2014 in the top ten places in England for unsafe levels of air pollution (The Sentinel, 2016), which has implications for life expectancy. Recently in receipt levelling up funding (Etherington, Jones and Telford, 2022) the city has emerging opportunities within its post industrial challenges. This special issue examines solutions, activism and creative approaches to community hardship. The special issue is a place-based examination of action on poverty and hardship that seeks to link local, creative, place-based solutions to national and international anti-poverty agendas. Each article is linked to how the authors contribute to action on poverty and hardship in the potteries and reflects on national, place based anti-poverty perspectives.