A First Footing
Or more likely, the twelfth newsletter you've received this year.
Hello. It's 2025.
Does anyone follow the tradition of first footing at New Year?
Even though I grew up in various bits of South Wales and southern England, my dad would always first foot…disappearing just after midnight to knock on the door and briefly irritate my mum with the idea she might have to speak to one of the neighbours at that hour, before she remembered it was him.
She has a tin with, I think, 45 years of offerings from him - little packages with coal for warmth, rice for food, and 20 pence pieces for wealth.
When we first bought our house I considered picking up the tradition but, truth be told, I can't remember the last New Year I saw in. Our New Year tradition was always a whisky and bed by 10.30, even before we had kids.
Perhaps I should do it at breakfast time on New Year's Day. Pocket hand warmers, croissants and a tenner.
Anyway, it's a tradition I like and have fond memories of, and even if I don't do it myself, I hope some of you did.
May this year being you the comfort of warmth, a full stomach and some change in your pocket.
Working parents in poverty
The Resolution Foundation have a spotlight paper out on how child poverty can only be addressed by tackling in-work poverty.
The paper lays out how an increasing proportion of children in poverty are in households with at least one working parent.
They also explain about some of the characteristics which go along with poverty - a child under 5, three or more children, an adult in the household with a disability or a life limiting condition.
The paper goes on to suggest a child poverty strategy needs to include proposals on childcare for working parents (the Grauniad focused on this bit) - especially around school hours or outside term time - and to consider transport and employment rights.
I scarcely need to explain why all of this is important to the North East - high rates of child poverty, low wages, high rates of ill health, low car ownership.
More bus cuts in deprived areas
Whenever people talk about cuts to bus services, it always makes me think of Fireman Sam.
There's an episode from the original classic series where Trevor's bus gets a flat tyre. Sam is helping him change it and rolls the spare to him, but it goes by and off down the rolling narrow lanes of the fictional Welsh countryside.
Dilys and the kids are waiting with growing frustration at the next stop, when the wheel rolls by.
“That's no good,” says Dilys, “where's the rest of the bus?”
Anyway, IPPR have a report out looking at bus franchising, and laying out some of the figures around who has been hit hardest by reductions in bus services.
As IPPR’s press release says, cuts have led to “people living in the most deprived areas of England seeing a ten times larger cut to bus provision than those in the least deprived areas.”
There's probably a few things in play - London skewing figures, the impact of local authority funding cuts, it’s possible least deprived areas probably had fewer bus services in the first place (I've not looked that up, but the market would be smaller where car ownership is higher). Healthy life expectancy too, given how much of the bus network is propped up on concessionary fare income, rather than commercial revenue.
The report is basically a lovely letter to Andy Burnham's bus franchising in Greater Manchester, but it might help you get your head around some of the issues and opportunities, given it's coming in the North East. (There's a transport consultation open now…)
Annual bus miles per head fell 14.22 miles in Tyne and Wear between 2011 and 2023, and more than 19 miles in Darlington.
Health in cities, or How Chris Witty Didn't Learn To Stop Worryingly but Went on Tour
The Chief Medical Officer gets to do a big report every year on an aspect of the health of the nation. I think I mentioned it last year in relation to ageing.
This year, it's about cities.
Newcastle is one of those cities, which gives us all the excuse to not read the whole 400 plus page report, and instead just focus on the Newcastle case study.
The overall report draws out some of the characteristics of cities - the population is younger than rural areas, there is more churn, deprivation is concentrated, air pollution can be an issue, there are more graduates.
The above image is how Newcastle City Council showcases some of that variation for the city.
The rest of the case study concentrates on how the city council's priorities around tackling poverty, inclusive growth and Net Zero help address some of the underlying public health issues the residents face.
There are two case studies within the case study, covering Byker Primary School and the Health Innovation Neighbourhood.
Working with me
This year, young though it is, has already had me thinking, talking and writing about health, science, education, diversity, university research, data ethics and work experience.
To talk about those things, or anything else, you can reach me on arlen@arlenpettitt.co.uk.