The Rising ‘Wealth-Poverty Gap’: How Affluence and Deprivation Now Sit Cheek by Jowl in England.
Within a postwar estate known as ‘The Nunny’, residents occupy homes only a few metres from their more affluent neighbours in nearby Scartho village. One 1.8-metre-high barricade physically separates the two areas in the town of Grimsby, blocking off roads and walkways that once connected them.
“This is the divide between rich and poor,” remarked Serenity Colley, 37. “It has been there since I’ve known. I don’t think they’ll take it down because I suspect they’ll want to mix with us.”
An Increasingly Common National Picture
Analysis of government figures reveals how deep disparity often exists, sometimes across little more than a short distance of tarmac, a hedge row or a barrier. Decades of austerity and lack of funding have led to a situation where a majority of local authorities now have a neighbourhood classified as one of the most deprived in the nation.
This spread of poverty has coincided with a sharp rise in the number of locations where disadvantaged and well-off residents end up as immediate neighbours. In 2019, just 65 of the poorest areas bordered one of the least deprived. This number increased to 119 in the most recent data.
A Barrier Which Does More Than Separate Space
At this Lincolnshire site, the gap is the most pronounced in the country and starkly apparent. The barrier transcends being just a symbolic division; it causes very real problems for everyday life.
- School runs that should take a quarter of an hour become an sixty-minute journey.
- Access to important services like supermarkets, educational facilities and employment centres is hindered.
- The site can attract vandalism and loitering, with instances of rubbish being thrown over the wall and related problems.
“People strive to maintain a well-kept home and garden, and then you live opposite that,” noted one local, gesturing towards the corroded metal wall.
Local Bonds Against a Backdrop of Hardship
At Centre4, workers emphasise that support does not recognise addresses. “Your postcode doesn’t necessarily indicate your personal struggles,” said director Tracey Good.
Despite being placed in the most deprived 10% for income, employment, education, health and crime, the estate retains a fierce loyalty and feeling of togetherness among its inhabitants. Meanwhile, the neighbouring area ranks among the least deprived 10% nationally.
Echoes Elsewhere: Stanhope in Ashford
This pattern is mirrored nationally. The Stanhope area in Ashford, Kent, a mid-century overspill estate, is in the most disadvantaged tenth of neighbourhoods in the country. It is immediately adjacent by large detached homes built in the early 2000s that sit in the top 10% for job prospects and living environment.
“They may possess bigger houses, but here there’s more community,” commented a long-term resident, aged 63. “It’s likely many people in the new builds never even talk to each other.”
The financial divide is evident: an typical family home costs about £275,000 on the estate, while on the other side equivalent properties fetch about £410,000.
Residents describe a tangible sense of neglect. “Our neighbourhood is neglected,” stated resident Susan. “Over here our facilities have slowly been taken away, and the majority of the issues we face here are to do with financial hardship.”
The increase in these ‘deprivation divides’ presents a portrait of an ever more divided England, where prosperity and deprivation are frequently awkwardly in close proximity.
