THOUSANDS of people living on Teesside struggle to speak English, it has emerged.
Despite living in the UK for more than three years, more than 3,000 people across Middlesbrough, Stockton, and Redcar and Cleveland cannot speak the native language competently.
The figures have been released as part of results of the 2011 census.
Despite this, Redcar and Cleveland emerged as the place in the country that has the largest percentage of people who speak English as their first language.
The area has 99% of people who speak the native tongue as their main way of verbal communication.
Across Teesside, the percentage of people who do not speak English at all or not very well is 0.003% of the local population.This compares compared to the higher figure of 0.008% nationally.
It was the first time a census had been used to ask people how well they could speak English when it was not their main language.
Across Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton and Middlesbrough areas 3,059 people can’t speak English well out of a population of 891,897.
In Redcar and Cleveland just 37 people can’t speak the language at all, compared with 340 in Middlesbrough and 101 in Stockton.
Dr Nigel Copsey, reader in Modern History at Teesside University, said migration tends to follow work - hence higher figures for London.
“Migration itself historically works on a ‘pull and push’ in the sense some things push people to migrate and there has to be certain things to pull people into areas,” said Dr Copsey.
“Redcar and Cleveland, I imagine, a lot would be work related - it may not be a particularly attractive area to migrants.
“For instance, some eastern European migrants have taken work in Lincolnshire working in agriculture. In effect it shows that migration has not really impacted on the area or has not impacted to a significant degree as elsewhere.”
Migrants are also drawn to established communities.
Dr Copsey’s, whose area of expertise is right-wing extremism and anti-fascism, added: “The far right isn’t strong in this area.
“I think it’s partly a reflection of the extent to which there isn’t really, or perceived to be, that significant a threat in terms of migration.”
Nationally 138,000 cannot speak English. The second most prevalent language is Polish with 546,000 speakers - 1% of the country. That is followed by Punjabi and Urdu.