‘One day I eat, one day I don’t’: Bolton grapples with cost of living crisis

Anxious families in north-west England town turn to Citizens Advice for help as inflation bites - but staff are out of answers

An eight-month-old baby girl snoozes in her pram while her mother, in those precious moments of quiet, counts the cost of feeding her four young children. A 16p increase in the price of chicken drumsticks has put them beyond her reach.

What my children eat - it's too expensive. The cost of living has changed," she said, in interview room four of Bolton's Citizens Advice bureau. Chicken drumsticks, they used to sell them for 1.49 - it's now 1.65. And the bus pass as well. From my house it used to be 2. It's now 3 ... A 1 [increase] - that's a lot."