People are working "every hour they can" and still struggling to afford food, says a man who runs a food bank in Cardiff. Mark Seed says some of his customers have resorted to eating pet food and heating their meals with candles.
Mr Seed runs the Trowbridge Pantry, part of the Your Local Pantry project, which supplies food in more than 80 neighbourhoods in the UK at low prices. The branch in Trowbridge offers food to more than 160 people. Mr Seed has been volunteering in the community for 20 years and said he was "shocked" by how much people were struggling. He told BBC Wales : "We have people who are eating pet food. [There are] people who are trying to heat their food on a radiator or a candle. Cardiff is a flourishing city however there are pockets of deprivation which are simply not acceptable."
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Mr Seed describes an "arc of poverty" from the east to the west of Cardiff where residents still really struggle financially despite the rest of the city's success. He said his customers were "working every hour they can" just to afford the essentials, but the rising cost of living makes this difficult.
The BBC's analysis shows that Trowbridge and Rumney is the area of Wales with the highest rate of household deprivation, followed by Rhyl East (Denbighshire), Trowbridge and St Mellons (Cardiff), Ely (Cardiff) and Riverside (Cardiff). By county, though, Cardiff isn't even in the top 10 for deprivation. The county in Wales with the biggest proportion of households in deprivation is Blaenau Gwent, followed by Merthyr Tydfil, Neath Port Talbot and Rhondda Cynon Taf.
This shows the scale of the disparity across the more and less affluent areas of Cardiff. One or Mr Seed's regulars, Elizabeth Williams, 54, said: "I usually go without to try to make things better in my house. Even with my son working - and he contributes as well - it's difficult because he has to live as well and he's got needs.
Census data also shows that Wales, on average, has had a higher percentage of households deprived in at least one "dimension" than England. Although both the Welsh and English figures have dropped since 2011, over 50% of households in both England and Wales are deprived in at least one dimension. The "dimensions" in the data are: employment, education, health and disability, and housing. The census has also revealed a lot about the areas of Wales which feel the most "Welsh" and the big gap in diversity between Cardiff and the rest of Wales - you can read about that here.
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