Calderdale town likely to be among ‘worst hit’ economically report reveals

The report, produced by the independent Centre For Towns organisation in conjunction with the University of Southampton, says the Calderdale town is likely to be among the ten per cent worst hit by the crisis in terms of being able to bounce back when it is over.

In particular, because 9.3 per cent of the town’s population are employed in the arts and leisure sector of the economy, it is likely to be negatively impacted, according to the paper.

Titled “The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on our towns and cities”, the report looks at which places in England and Wales its authors think will be most affected by COVID-19.

In particular, the survey looks at the sectors of the economy currently shut down before going on to analyse the resilience of places to the effects of COVID-19, say its authors.

The report also includes a “top 20” of places the authors believe will be hardest hit and its compilers have supplied a fuller table to Sky News which is available with the news channel’s story and includes 805 towns of varying sizes and ranging from seaside towns to large towns, with Todmorden classed as a small town.

This places Todmorden 24th out of the 805 in terms of overall risk, compared to Halifax (228th), Brighouse (418th) and Elland (438th), with Calderdale’s other main centres Hebden Bridge and Sowerby Bridge not appearing in the table at all.

Other factors taken into consideration by the report’s compilers are issues such as the towns’ existing status which also takes in issues such as health and age – Todmorden’s population has 32 per cent, almost a third of its people, aged 45 and over.

Centre For Towns says its work covers approximately 7,000 places of all sizes across Britain and it produces regular reports pertinent to all these places.

The new study is co-authored by Ian Warren (Director and lead data analyst of the Centre For Towns), John Houghton (a PhD researcher in Social Statistics and Demography at the University of Southampton), Will Jennings (Co-Director of the Centre for Towns and Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Southampton) and Mark Gregory (Chief Economist at Ernst and Young and chair of the Centre For Towns Advisory Board).