West Sussex village labelled as 'state pension capital of Britain' by national newspaper

The Telegraph published an article online today (Sunday, June 30) all about East Preston – a coastal village and civil parish in the Arun district and lies roughly halfway between Littlehampton and Worthing.

The article was titled: ‘Old, rich and living on benefits: welcome to the state pension capital of Britain’.

Writers Melissa Lawford and Meike Eijsberg stated: “East Preston feels an unlikely stronghold of benefits dependency. The genteel village on the West Sussex coast might be the closest thing that Britain has to a moneyed pensioner utopia.

"Despite this wealth and cohesion, East Preston gets more help from the taxpayer than much of Britain. It has the largest proportion of state pension recipients of any community.”

The Telegraph conducted analysis which showed that East Preston – along with Rustington East – is the only neighbourhood (out of the 7,264 across England and Wales) where the over-66s ‘constitute more than half of the population, at 51pc’.

“It also has the largest proportion of people receiving state pension, at 49pc,” the writers added.

"The tension between East Preston’s wealth and its cost to the state gets to the heart of politically explosive trade-offs facing the new chancellor from the end of this week.”

The article – which explained why the ‘exceptional’ West Sussex village is in a ‘middle-layer super output area’ – also stated that the nation’s finances are ‘sitting on a pensioner timebomb’ that will be ticking for the new government. Click here to read more.