Inside the ‘UK’s single mum capital’ where women are...

IT’S 11am on a rainy Thursday and one busy playground is lined with buggies where pre-school aged children are playing. Just beyond the swings a group of parents have gathered, chatting amongst themselves whilst keeping a watchful eye as their sons and daughters dash between the climbing frame and slide.

Image Credit: The Sun [A mother and her young daughter in a stroller on a city street.]

But one thing stands out here - there’s no men in this playground just off Lewisham high street, only women. This pocket of South East London is home to some of the most densely populated areas of single parent families in the country - as much as 71% in some neighbourhoods, according to latest Census.

Image Credit: The Sun [Portrait of Shekera Williams in Lewisham Park.]

There are claims by some that this area has become a “dumping ground” for women raising children alone. The London borough has a population just shy of 300,000, and many locals see it as the ‘single mum capital of the UK’. The figures speak for themselves.

Image Credit: The Sun [Blue crate of baby toys and pram toys.]

In the Lewisham North constituency, 47% of families with children are headed up by a lone-parent, as are 44% in neighbouring Lewisham East, an FOI request found. The closest soft play centre lies four miles away, so even in freezing, damp January weather, Lewisham’s outdoor parks are full.

Image Credit: The Sun [A young mother holding her toddler daughter on Lewisham High Street.]

The playground is free, something which is welcomed by the women here as many of them are struggling to make ends meet. Local baby banks, which supply struggling mothers with essentials like clothes, formula and toiletries, are inundated with requests.

Image Credit: The Sun [A woman and her two daughters pose in front of a large hotel.]

The living conditions for these women who are raising their children independently can be bleak. Single mum Phoebe Smith, 21, spent all of last year in mould-riddled temporary accommodation in Lewisham. The Contract Support Administrator was born and raised in nearby Southwark alongside her two younger siblings, and her parents split when she was 12-years-old.

She welcomed her daughter in August 2023, but wasn't with the dad. Phoebe was living in her mum’s flat alongside her siblings when Isbaella was a newborn. But due to severe overcrowding, she had to leave. She was allocated temporary accommodation in Lewisham in January 2024 - an area of London she wasn’t familiar with - by Southwark council due to lack of availability in the area.

Image Credit: The Sun [Two women stand in a storage room filled with baby supplies.]

“I know two other single mums from my area who were just fobbed off in Lewisham,” Phoebe says. “It’s like they just drop us here in hope we’ll become somebody else’s problem.”. She has also heard of other London councils doing the same, and believes Lewisham is a hot spot for “dumping single mums and giving them no support”.

Image Credit: The Sun [Woman cleaning a stroller in a baby supply donation center.]

Meanwhile, supermarkets up and down Lewisham high street are sold out of nappies, and some aisles are so packed full with buggies whilst mums shop that it’s hard to pass through. I know two other single mums from my area who were just fobbed off in Lewisham. It’s like they just drop us here in hope we’ll become somebody else’s problem.

Image Credit: The Sun [Woman folding children's clothing for donation.]

Phoebe’s third-floor bedsit didn’t have a secure front door and was riddled with mould in the hallway, where she had to leave Isabella’s pram every night as she couldn’t carry it up the stairs alone. “There were many nights I’d just sit in the room and cry my eyes out,” she says. “I felt hopeless and didn’t know how it was going to get better.”.

Phoebe had to return to work from maternity leave early after finding her Universal Credit benefits didn’t stretch far enough to keep her afloat in a brand new area. Due to the prevalence of working single mums, there is a gender pay gap that swings in women’s favour, according to the Lewisham Council Annual Employment Profile for 2023.

Single parent charity Gingerbread is fighting to create a society where all single parents and their children thrive. These are the organisation's latest figures on single parenthood... Women are paid more than their male counterparts throughout the borough. For every £1 earned by men, women receive 11 pence more.

But the numbers jar with what’s happening at ground level. Despite the important role women play in Lewisham’s workforce, figures show that a startling amount of single mums in the borough are living in poverty, with 33% of children living below the poverty line, according to the 2021 Consensus.

After a year of what she describes as “torture”, Phoebe was allocated new temporary accommodation closer to her family and friends in Southwark in January this year. This vicious cycle of ‘in-work poverty’ is something fellow single mum Shekera Williams knows all too well, having been raised by a single mum and then becoming one herself.

The 25-year-old, who is Lewisham born-and-bred, is raising her twin daughters Nyla and Milan, seven, in a hostel after having to leave her 61-year-old deaf mum’s overcrowded flat. She co-parents with her daughters’ dad but has to work two jobs - one in a bar and another as a learning support assistant for young people with learning difficulties - to make ends meet.