JEREMY Corbyn promised to fix the “grotesque inequality” blighting “held-back” coastal communities in an election pitch.

The Labour leader blamed years of Tory austerity for leaving behind seaside towns in a speech in Hastings, on Saturday.

With analysis suggesting workers earn £1,600 less in seaside areas than those inland, Mr Corbyn will hope the pitch to boost wages can overturn the Conservatives’ wafer-thin majority there.

He said: “Hastings, like so many other held-back coastal communities, has been blighted by the grotesque inequality and poverty caused by nine years of vicious austerity and Tory cuts.

“Poverty and inequality is not inevitable. In the fifth-richest country in the world no-one should be forced to rely on a food bank to feed their family, no-one should be sleeping rough on our streets, and nobody should be working for poverty wages.”

Labour says one in five adults in the Hastings and Rye constituency will be on Universal Credit when it is fully rolled out, while food banks in the town say they distributed nearly 90,000 meals last year.