He says: “There is just as much talent here as there is anywhere else in the country, it’s just not being nurtured and supported and given opportunities.

“For those who fall through the cracks, it is really difficult to turn it around.

“The amount of drug use here is off the scale — crack cocaine and prescription drugs are sold on the black market.

“Cannabis doesn’t even count as a drug here. People will tell you, ‘I don’t take drugs’, and they’ll be smoking a spliff.

“What I will say is people here are working really hard and trying their best — they are just not employed.

“We have plenty of young entrepreneurs, but they are selling fags and drugs instead of running a legitimate business.

“Out of the people we see, about 80 per cent are out of work, and everyone is on some sort of benefit.

“The stories we hear from people coming in, the levels of abuse. There are teenage girls who think it’s acceptable for their male partners to beat them up.”

Even on a sunny day, a walk through the estate can chill you to the bone — not just because of the breeze blowing off the River Tees.

When my photographer and I arrived just after 2pm, several teenage girls could be seen pushing prams past the gates of the local school.

Hooded youths on bikes charged up and down the street, leading to a bleak parade of shops that would have appeared derelict if not for the adults loitering outside.

Most of the people I approached refused to be interviewed, with more than one issuing a blunt: “F*** off.”

One man in his 20s shouted: “You’re brave standing there — I bet someone tries to sell you drugs.”

Mike, whose organisation has offered jobs renovating houses, said: “You would not believe the challenge in getting people to turn up for five days of work just because you are paying them.

“A lot of jobs here are temporary, which can cause more problems for people than not working because of all the expenses, and then your benefits stop.

“The jobcentre doesn’t want you on the unemployment list, it wants you on some kind of benefit. The system encourages people to claim.

“The council has a whole team that works on helping people maximise their benefits income, and there are families with eight, nine or ten children. It’s mind-blowing.

“We have a former tenant who is 36 with two kids, and she has only left the estate twice in her life — once to go to prison and once aged three when she went to a ­holiday camp north of Hartlepool.

“There’s a lot of negativity bred into ­people because they feel the ­system has let them down.

“We had three big employers — British Steel, shipbuilding and the chemical firm ICI — who looked after their staff well.

“They had their own social clubs and football teams and, if you lose that, it’s not just your job you’ve lost — it’s your social connection. Everything that makes you has just disappeared.”

The latest figures from the ONS, or Office for National Statistics, show 957,000 people aged 16 to 24 — which is 12.8 per cent of all young people in the UK — were classed as NEETs in December, a rise of 11,000 on the previous quarter.

In the 18 to 24 age group, the proportion increases to 15.2 per cent, and there is a fast-rising group of young women no longer in education, employment or ­training.

ONS figures also show more than half of NEETs aged 16 to 24 (547,000) are classed as economically inactive, with 303,000 of them young girls.

Research by non-profit organisation Impetus found that Middlesbrough, which has a population of around 150,000, had one of the highest proportions of NEETs in the UK last year.

The only town ahead of it was Knowsley, Merseyside.

Middlesbrough was once so central to British industry that it was among the first places bombed by Germany during the Second World War.

But the decline of the Teesside steelworks, which at its peak boasted 91 blast furnaces, caused thousands of job losses.

By the early 1990s, only one furnace was left, with the final one ceasing operations in 2015. In 2019, British Steel went into ­liquidation, putting another 5,000 jobs at risk.

ONS figures show that almost one in three of Middlesbrough’s working-age ­population was “economically inactive” by 2023.

The problem is reflected in schools, where the 28 per cent exclusion and suspension rate is three times the national average.

One mum of six we spoke to believes that too many children are written off before they have a chance.

She also claimed to have been classified as long-term sick despite her objections.

The 56-year-old, who did not want to be named, said: “For most kids around here, by the time they turn 16, they’ve already got criminal records for stupid things like antisocial behaviour.

“So when they become adults, they are completely unemployable. On the road where I live, only three of us out of the 40 people work.

“I’m classed as disabled and unemployable as I have kidney disease. But what am I supposed to do — sit around and watch daytime TV all day?

“Not a chance. I’ve started my own little business making funeral flowers.”

Mum-of-one Demi Finley, 28, is­ couch-surfing on the Thorntree Estate and admits she has never even ­applied for a regular job.

Eight months pregnant, her main goal has been beating her addiction to crack cocaine.

I spoke to her days after she completed a ten-day sentence for smuggling drugs into prison in 2023.

Demi said of her spell inside: “It was like a detox. I want to stay clean for my son, but I’ve never looked for a job on the books.

“I don’t have any qualifications, and I dropped out of school when I was 13.

“I went through the care system, and then I had my daughter ten years ago.

“I’ve been homeless ever since I found out I was 23 weeks pregnant with my ­second child.

“We were staying with my mum until she died, but I couldn’t afford to pay the rent. She was only 53.

“The autopsy said it was withdrawing from tablets like [sleeping pill] zopiclone that killed her.

“I’m 37 weeks pregnant. I live off £444 a month Universal Credit, and I’ve lost my child support money because my daughter is staying with my auntie. So what is the Government doing to help me?”

Cleaner Abbi Sharpe offers a ray of light as one of the few Thorntree Estate residents who has managed to find work.

Abbi, 20, says: “My mother had struggles with her mental health, so she wasn’t working.

“My dad was a druggie, and we didn’t have contact with him. I ended up in a behavioural school because I was getting bullied, and I started acting out.

“The mainstream school said I was unteachable. We didn’t get any career advice.

“We didn’t get any help with jobs at all. I don’t think school prepares you for the outside world.

“But I’ve just moved into my own flat, and I’m working part-time as a cleaner. I hope the future will be brighter for me and my children when I have them.”

Graphic designer Emma Tweddle, from Middlesbrough, says: “I’m 36, but I came to uni here and stayed because I love the area. I was born in Redcar. It’s gritty, and it’s not perfect, but there are opportunities.”

And mental health worker Claire Harrison, 55, of Stockton-on-Tees, says: “Middlesbrough has a lot of deprivation generally, poor educational standards and child poverty.

“People don’t get the start here they would in some other areas, but there is a lot of effort going into trying to get people into work and get them job-ready. The council are investing in it too.”

A Middlesbrough Council spokesman says that while NEET rates are much higher in areas like the Thorntree Estate, “the percentage of 16 to 17-year-olds not in education, employment or training in Middlesbrough is 4.1 per cent compared to the North East average of five per cent.

“We continue to work with a range of partners to develop opportunities and ­support our young people to achieve ­positive outcomes that are right for them.”