On a hilltop above Ashfield, a sculpture of a miner watches over the local towns.
In a part of Nottinghamshire with a proud mining heritage, almost a third of working-age people are now economically inactive.
It’s places like this where they’re bracing for the impact of welfare reform.
A group of young people meet here in a local park. They’re among the UK’s almost a million so-called NEETS – people aged 16-24 not in employment, education or training.
Holly, 17, had to drop out of college for having too much time off and explained she has a long-term condition that makes her sick, as well as autism and ADHD.
“I’m still living with my parents but I’m also on PIP,” she says. She’s concerned that the government is expected to tighten eligibility for PIP – personal independence payments – as part of cuts to sickness and disability benefits.
“It shouldn’t happen because I practically live off of it,” she says. “I use it to get around – transport – because I struggle to get buses and trains and stuff so I get Ubers a lot which can be quite pricey.”
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She accepts that as a PIP claimant, she can work and says she’s been looking for jobs. “I do want to work,” she insists.
“It’s just the fact that I don’t know if I could work full time with it, and because I’m off sick a lot, I just don’t know if I’d be able to hold a job.”
It’s that concern that’s led her to pursue another option.
“I’m working on getting a fit note at the moment,” she says, referring to a note from her doctor that could lead to her being signed off.
It would mean she’d get more money in benefits – around double the amount a jobseeker receives with no condition to look for work – but she’d then risk losing it if she got a job, a situation she believes is perverse.
“If you have a fit note then it tells you that you cannot work ever – you shouldn’t be looking for a job – which I think is wrong,” she says.
Other young people who are looking for jobs here say when they apply for work they often don’t hear back.
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Pippa Carter, the director of the Inspire and Achieve Foundation, which works with more than 200 young people a year, says: “Mental health is the largest barrier with our young people.
“And COVID was an impact as well. They’re just not really able to get out of their rooms. They haven’t got that social confidence.
“And then if you then layer on top of that the benefits and welfare system… if they are signed off sick, for example, with their struggling mental health, they’re then stopped from trying to get employment and take steps forward.”
Many here would welcome a system that gives more help to young people taking their first steps into the workplace.
However, others worry that changes to health-related benefits will push some of society’s most vulnerable people deeper into poverty.
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In the centre of Sutton in Ashfield, former care assistant Allison leans on a Zimmer frame as she walks along the high street.
Now 59, she says she was signed off sick with a range of health conditions around 15 years ago and claims PIP.
Recently, life has become a struggle. “We did use a food bank the other day for the first time, so degrading,” she says.
But she’s afraid that cuts to benefits would force her to rely on it.
“I’d be going there every week, I’d have to because I wouldn’t be able to survive.”
