A Rising ‘Wealth-Poverty Gap’: How Prosperity and Hardship Now Sit Side by Side in England.
In Nunsthorpe, inhabitants live in homes only a few metres from their wealthier counterparts in nearby Scartho village. One 1.8-metre-high barricade literally separates the two areas in the town of Grimsby, sealing off roads and walkways that previously linked them.
“This is the posh-poor divide,” remarked a resident, aged 37. “It’s been like this for as long as I’ve known. I doubt they’ll bring it down because I don’t think they’ll want to mix with us.”
An Increasingly Common National Picture
Data from government figures shows 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 have a neighbourhood ranking as one of the poorest in the nation.
This geographical widening of poverty has coincided with a significant increase in the quantity of locations where deprived and affluent residents find themselves as immediate neighbours. In 2019, only 65 of the most deprived neighbourhoods bordered one of the least deprived. This number increased to 119 in the latest data.
A Barrier Which Divides More Than Space
At this Lincolnshire site, the gap is the most pronounced in the country and starkly apparent. The barrier transcends being just a metaphorical divide; it creates very real difficulties for everyday life.
- School runs that ought to take a quarter of an hour become an sixty-minute journey.
- Access to important amenities like supermarkets, schools and care homes is made more difficult.
- The area can attract vandalism and loitering, 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 live opposite that,” said one resident, motioning at the rusted barricade.
Community Spirit Against a Backdrop of Hardship
At a local community centre, workers emphasise that need does not recognise addresses. “Your postcode is not a reliable indicator of your personal struggles,” said director Tracey Good.
Despite being placed in the lowest 10% for multiple deprivation indicators, the estate boasts a strong sense and feeling of community among its residents. Meanwhile, the neighbouring area ranks among the most prosperous 10% overall.
Echoes Elsewhere: An Estate in Kent
This pattern is repeated across the country. The Stanhope estate in Ashford, Kent, a 1960s overspill estate, is in the most disadvantaged tenth of areas in the country. It is closely bordered by spacious houses built in the early 2000s that sit in the top 10% for employment and quality of surroundings.
“They might have larger properties, but here there’s a stronger community,” said Phil Hockley, 63. “It’s likely many people in the new builds don’t even speak to each other.”
The economic divide is evident: an typical three-bedroom house sells for about £275,000 on the estate, while on the other side equivalent properties fetch about £410,000.
Residents describe a palpable sense of neglect. “Our neighbourhood gets ignored,” stated resident Susan. “Over here our facilities have slowly been taken away, and most of the community problems here are related to poverty.”
The rise in these ‘inequality borders’ presents a portrait of an ever more segregated England, where prosperity and need are often uncomfortably in close proximity.
