NEARLY one in every three of children in Yorkshire are living in poverty, new figures show.

Latest figures found that of the 3.6m children living in poverty in Britain, 9% (330,000) were in Yorkshire and Humberside.

The figure is down 20,000 on last year.

The director of End Child Poverty - a coalition of charities - Jonathan Stearn said: "If all the children living in poverty in Yorkshire and Humberside held hands they would stretch for 63 miles.

"The Government is reducing child poverty but this shows the size of the task."

The group estimates that the Government needs to find £6.8bn to close the income gap if it is going to keep its pledge to end child poverty.