I AM concerned with the national budget as it is tightening the squeeze on low income families and children across the country.

Families with young children will be particularly hard hit, not just through reductions in benefits, but also through cuts to services for children and young people.

How will this work out in Oxford?

Despite its reputation, Oxford is a city of startling inequalities.

Figures from 2007 showed a seven- to 10-year gap in life expectancy between the council housing estates Blackbird Leys and Barton on the south-east of the city, where people can expect to live to 75, and the more affluent areas of North Oxford, where people live well into their 80s.

This picture of inequality is starkly seen in the figures for young children.

A quarter of Oxford’s children live below the official poverty line – the same as the national average.

Today's letters

But nearly three-quarters of these children, 72 per cent, are concentrated in the south-east of the city – the neighbourhoods around Barton and Blackbird Leys.

In North Oxford, one child in 10 lives below the poverty line, yet in Barton and Blackbird Leys, it is more than one child in three.

The national budget’s cuts to social security and the increasing costs of renting accommodation is very likely to sharpen this inequality even further.

Local councils are cutting budgets and services.

Oxfordshire County Council is again proposing to close children’s centres. These serve families particularly in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods across city and county. They provide and coordinate key education, health and welfare services for a very large number of young children and their families. These are the citizens of the future. They deserve better.

TERESA SMITH

Warnborough Road,

Oxford