Hundreds of children in our community are sleeping without proper beds, forced to rest on hard floors or makeshift arrangements of piled clothing, according to a local charity working to address the crisis.
Care Zone, a furniture bank operating from a warehouse on the edge of Peterborough, plans to allocate £80,000 this year specifically for beds and mattresses to help local families. The organization has become a lifeline for households struggling with basic furniture needs.
"Many children are sleeping on a pile of clothes, or maybe just on the hard floor," Ashley Wilcox from Care Zone told BBC. "That's not good enough."
The warehouse stores everything from beds and sofas to long-life food items. Last year, volunteers cleaned and repaired donated furniture and household goods, distributing more than 3,500 larger items and 425 smaller items such as saucepans and tin openers. Of the 1,900 people who received help from Care Zone last year, approximately 845 were children.
This year, brand new mattresses are stacked high in the facility, ready for distribution to families in need. Wilcox explained that many families arrive after spending time in temporary accommodation, sometimes with five people sharing a single room with limited beds and no proper cooking facilities.
The charity has made tackling bed poverty a priority because of its direct impact on children's education. "For children in particular, a good night's sleep is really essential," Wilcox told BBC. "By giving them a bed, they have a much better chance at doing better in school."
Care Zone operates as part of Peterborough City Council's crisis resilience fund, a network of organizations providing food parcels, advice, and other essential services. Anyone can donate items to the charity, while access is coordinated through referrals from organizations such as the council or local GP practices.
Esther Baffa-Isaacs, from the city council's poverty prevention team, acknowledged that bed poverty represents a "significant" issue where the authority is "very keen to do more." She told BBC: "Child bed poverty is significant, and it has an impact on educational attainment."
The council recently took proactive steps by writing to 3,200 households identified as being in a "crisis state" to ensure they were claiming correct benefits and aware of available support. "That was what it came down to, just saying, 'you have help'," Baffa-Isaacs told BBC. She emphasized there was "much more we can do" to reach people in crisis.
The outreach effort comes as a recent study by Policy in Practice revealed that people in Peterborough are missing out on £92m from unclaimed benefits.
According to data from the Department for Work and Pensions published in 2024 and 2025, approximately one-third of children in Peterborough are living in poverty, compared with a UK average of 26%.
Zameer Ali, Peterborough City Council's cabinet member for communities and public safety and a Labour councillor, said the authority was "doing everything" to reach people. He noted that language barriers can present challenges and emphasized the importance of making information accessible, particularly for parents who may need their children to translate.
"We don't want you to go without and we certainly do not want you or your children to fall into any form of hardship," Ali told BBC. "What you need to do is reach back to us and say 'I need help'."
