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Welcome to Thorntree - apparently the most “pro-Brexit” area in Britain.

When the east Middlesbrough housing estate was built in the 1950s, industry on Teesside was booming. Now, long-term unemployment is around 20%, and almost 50% have no formal qualifications.

Data revealed by the BBC shows that 82.5% of voters in Thorntree and Brambles Farm voted to leave the EU in last year’s referendum - the largest “Leave” majority in the country of the 1,283 individual wards for which data was available.

And chatting to business owners and shoppers about Brexit, and their hopes for the future, it was clear many people here still feel ignored by the Government.

At King’s Barbers on Beresford Buildings, giant posters of Boro players from past and present cover the cutting room walls. And just like the mighty Boro, owner John Iley said Brexit was an estate philosophy.

“I would say out of all my customers that come in, really, there’s only been two who said they would stay. One was an old bloke, and I think the other one was drunk,” he said.

His customers had a host of reasons for voting Leave, but immigration stood out as the main concern.

“You don’t know who’s coming in,” said the 48-year-old. “We need stricter controls on our borders.

“A lot of schools are clogged up, the doctor’s is clogged up.

“I also think that a lot of money comes out of the UK into the European Union and we don’t get it back. Run down areas like this, what do we get?”

(Image: Evening Gazette)

As The Gazette talks to people about Brexit, one man initially declines to comment - but then, having thought about, returns.

“The Government are ignoring us,” he says. “They let a lot of business die out. They didn’t help us out with funding or anything. We lost our steel and our airport.” And with that he’s off, not leaving his name but having made the points he wanted to get across.

Elsewhere on the arcade, Sophie from Thorntree Fish and Chips also backed Brexit. But eight months on from the referendum, she said she wasn’t sure how people will fare in a post-Brexit Britain.

She said: “David Cameron leaving has put a spanner in the works. A lot of people don’t know who this Theresa May is.

“A lot of things we do in the shop are from overseas. The chips are from Germany. The fish is from Holland.”

Out shopping, Irene Tonge, 66, of Barrington Crescent, said she voted to Leave. “I think prices will go down with electricity and gas if they can negotiate instead of being told what to be charged.”

But not everyone supported Vote Leave. Ina Lavin, 68, of Culverley Road, said: “Everybody said they were voting to cut back on immigration. For me that’s not a issue. I just thought ‘better the devil you know’ really.

(Image: Evening Gazette)

“I thought to leave the EU, everything would go up, prices in the shops, everything. And to tell you the truth, we’re seeing that now. It is going up in price all the time and it’s going to get even worse. I mean, we’re not even fully out of it yet.”

Another shopper, Len Robinson, 68, of Greenway Court, said: “The Brexit motto was ‘take back control’ but to give control to who - to this government? No chance.

“I think were going to get on worse. I think the whole thing is going to be a disaster.”

Across Middlesbrough, 65% of people voted Leave. Only one ward, Linthorpe , voted to remain - by a wafer thin 0.06%.