Children growing up in certain parts of the district are five times more likely to be living in poverty than those growing up in others.

Stats released by the London Child Poverty Alliance for July to September 2017 show the levels of deprivation on a ward-by-ward basis across Epping Forest.

With poverty defined as 'living in a household with less than 60 per cent of contemporary median income', 5,508 children across the district fall into the bracket.

The ward with the highest proportion of children living in poverty is Waltham Abbey High Beach, where 31 per cent of the area's young people come from significantly low income homes.

Waltham Abbey Paternoster (31 per cent), Loughton Alderton (30.2 per cent) and High Ongar, Willingale and The Rodings (29 per cent) also rank towards the bottom.

By contrast, only 6.3 per cent of children in Theydon Bois live in poverty - five times less than Waltham Abbey High Beach.

In Loughton St John's the figure was 9.2 per cent, more than three times less than the Alderton and Broadway wards in the same town.