The Office of National Statistics figures show 23.2 per cent of Fleetwood residents are claiming unemployment benefits, including disabled people and single parents.

In Pharos Ward, figures for December showed 5.8 per cent of people claiming Job Seeker's Allowance and a further 13.6 per cent claiming Employment Support Allowance.

The town council has now vowed to work with the local authority to reduce the number of unemployed people in the port.

Town councillor Alan Marsh said: "Unemployment blights families and it blights communities.

"Particularly for people aged from 16 to 24, unless they can get into work or training, the chances of them getting employment in the future are limited.

"If people are coming into Fleetwood to do work they should give the people of Fleetwood the opportunity to take the jobs.

"If you have the skills base and you have people trained you can go to contractors early and make sure they can use Fleetwood people."

Last year the North Fleetwood Neighbourhood Management Scheme was launched to help tackle deprivation in Pharos and Mount wards.

Chairman of the scheme, Coun Peter Murphy, said strides were being made in getting young people into training at Blackpool and The Fylde College.

He added: "The number of young people not in education, employment or training in Fleetwood is way above the rest of the area and we are targeting them.

"In Fleetwood it's about 20 per cent of youngsters and we are working to get unemployment down.

"There will be jobs at the recycling centre being built at Thornton and they are looking to take the vast majority of people from the local area.

"The new power station will recruit locally and we are looking at schemes to get local unemployed people into work.

"If we can get people trained we can break the cycle of three generations of unemployment.

"We can get them into work and they can realise it's good to go out and earn your own living and they will put something back into the community."