NEW figures have revealed worrying levels of child poverty in Dorset, charity campaigners warned today.

A report by the Campaign to End Child Poverty shows more than one third of children in the county are living below or on the brink of the poverty line.

The rates of child poverty across the country has been compiled as campaigners prepare to demand action from Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The figures for south Dorset reveal that of 17,945 children, 7,450 - or 42 per cent - are in low income families, that is families where parents are collecting child tax credit or are out of work.

A breakdown of the figures shows 2,990 - 17 per cent - of those children are from families where the parents are unemployed, while 4,460 - 25 per cent - are from families that are receiving child tax credits.

The poorest areas in the constituency are Littlemoor and Melcombe Regis in Weymouth, where the proportions of children in low income families stand at 63 per cent and 59 per cent.

Sixty per cent of children in Underhill on Portland are from low income families, according to the charity.

West Dorset fares little better, with the figures revealing 35 per cent of 17,485 children are from low income families.

Melissa Derricourt, parenting adviser for the Weymouth-based Children's Society Waves Project, said the figures came as little surprise.

She said: "I would say in my case load at least a third of the families are suffering from poverty and that impacts upon the children.

"I see parents who are going through difficulties and it doesn't make parenting any easier.

"The families I work with actually manage the little money they have extremely well.

"It's just they don't have very much, so I think the Government could do something about it."

Campaigners will be in Trafalgar Square on Saturday to stage a rally titled Keep the Promise', which will call on Gordon Brown to stick to his pledge to halve child poverty by 2010 and end it by 2020.

Martin Narey, chairman of the Campaign to End Child Poverty, said: "Pockets of our country are in turmoil.

"These figures show us that there are millions more children than originally thought being failed by the system."