Unemployment in Kingston has hit its highest level for three-and-a-half years, according to figures released this week.

A wave of redundancies has resulted in 304 extra people signing on to jobseeker’s allowance in the autumn, bringing the total up to 1,533 in the borough in December.

Kingston’s unemployment rate is still below average, with 1.4 per cent of adults out of work, compared with 3.2 per cent across London.

But the current number of job seekers is expected to be even higher, after a further 143 redundancies were made at Woolworths stores in Kingston, Surbiton and New Malden in early January.

Unemployment had been dropping until last summer, from a peak in March 1993, when 5,645 people in Kingston were on the dole - six out of every 100 eligible working people