A Rising ‘Wealth-Poverty Gap’: The Way Affluence and Hardship Now Sit Side by Side in England.
In Nunsthorpe, inhabitants occupy homes only several yards from their more affluent neighbours in nearby Scartho. A 1.8-metre-high barricade physically divides the two areas in the town of Grimsby, blocking off paths and streets that once linked them.
“This is the posh-poor divide,” remarked Serenity Colley, aged 37. “It has been there since I’ve known. I don’t think they’ll bring it down because I don’t think they’ll want to associate with us.”
An Increasingly Common National Picture
Data from official figures reveals how deep inequality can run, at times across nothing more than a few metres of tarmac, a hedge row or a wall. Decades of budget cuts and lack of funding have led to a situation where almost two-thirds of local authorities now contain a locality ranking as one of the most deprived in the nation.
This geographical widening of poverty has led to a sharp rise in the number of locations where deprived and well-off residents end up as immediate neighbours. In 2019, just 65 of the most deprived areas bordered one of the wealthiest. That figure rose to 119 in the most recent data.
A Barrier Which Does More Than Separate Land
At this Lincolnshire site, the gap is the biggest in the UK and starkly obvious. The wall transcends being just a symbolic division; it causes very real problems for everyday life.
- School runs that ought to take 15-20 minutes turn into an sixty-minute journey.
- Access to key services like grocery stores, schools and care homes is made more difficult.
- The site can attract antisocial behaviour, with reports of rubbish being dumped over the wall and related issues.
“You try to maintain a nice house and nice garden, and then you reside facing that,” said one local, motioning at the rusted metal wall.
Community Spirit Amidst Challenges
Within a local community centre, workers stress that support does not recognise addresses. “Where you live doesn’t necessarily indicate your level of challenge,” explained chief executive a community leader.
Regardless of ranking in the lowest 10% for multiple deprivation indicators, Nunsthorpe boasts a strong sense and feeling of community among its inhabitants. By contrast, the neighbouring area is classified among the least deprived 10% overall.
A Similar Story: Stanhope in Ashford
This phenomenon is repeated across the country. The Stanhope area in Kent, a 1960s housing development, is in the most disadvantaged tenth of areas in the country. It is immediately adjacent by large houses built in the 2000s that are in the wealthiest tenth for job prospects and quality of surroundings.
“They may possess bigger houses, but here there’s a stronger community,” commented a long-term resident, aged 63. “It’s likely a lot of people over there never even talk to each other.”
The financial gap is clear: an average family home costs about £275,000 on the estate, while on the other side equivalent properties fetch about £410,000.
Residents describe a tangible feeling of being overlooked. “Our neighbourhood gets ignored,” stated resident Susan. “In this area our facilities have slowly been taken away, and most of the issues we face here are to do with financial hardship.”
The increase in these ‘deprivation divides’ presents a picture of an ever more divided England, where prosperity and need are frequently uncomfortably close neighbours.
