A Growing ‘Wealth-Poverty Gap’: The Way Affluence and Hardship Are Found Side by Side in England.
Within Nunsthorpe, inhabitants live in properties only several yards from their wealthier counterparts in the adjacent Scartho village. One 1.8-metre-high wall physically divides the two areas in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, blocking off paths and streets that previously connected them.
“This is the posh-poor divide,” remarked a resident, aged 37. “It has been there for as long as I’ve known. I don’t think they’ll bring it down because I suspect they’ll want to associate with us.”
An Increasingly Common Pattern Across the Country
Analysis of official statistics reveals how deep inequality often exists, at times across nothing more than a short distance of tarmac, a hedge row or a barrier. Years of austerity and lack of funding have led to a situation where almost two-thirds of local authorities now have a locality ranking as one of the poorest in the country.
The geographical widening of poverty has coincided with a sharp rise in the quantity of places where disadvantaged and affluent people end up as immediate neighbours. In 2019, just 65 of the most deprived areas adjoined one of the wealthiest. This number rose to 119 in the most recent data.
A Wall That Divides More Than Space
In Grimsby, the gap is the biggest in the country and painfully 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 turn into an sixty-minute journey.
- Access to important services like grocery stores, schools and employment centres is hindered.
- The site often sees antisocial behaviour, with reports of rubbish being thrown over the wall and related issues.
“You try to maintain a nice house and nice garden, and then you reside facing that,” noted one local, gesturing towards the rusted barricade.
Local Bonds Amidst Hardship
Within Centre4, workers stress that need transcends postcodes. “Where you live is not a reliable indicator of your level of challenge,” explained director Tracey Good.
Despite ranking in the most deprived 10% for income, employment, education, health and crime, Nunsthorpe retains a fierce loyalty and sense of togetherness among its inhabitants. By contrast, Scartho ranks among the least deprived 10% nationally.
A Similar Story: An Estate in Kent
This pattern is repeated across the country. The Stanhope estate in Kent, a 1960s overspill estate, is in the 10% most deprived of areas in England. It is immediately adjacent by spacious detached homes built in the 2000s that are in the wealthiest tenth for job prospects and quality of surroundings.
“They might have bigger houses, but here there’s more community,” said a long-term resident, aged 63. “You’ll probably find a lot of people over there never even talk to each other.”
The financial divide is clear: an average family home costs about £275,000 on the Stanhope estate, while on the other side equivalent homes go for about £410,000.
Locals speak of a palpable sense of neglect. “This part of the community is neglected,” said holistic health worker Susan. “In this area 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’ paints a portrait of an increasingly divided society, where wealth and need are often awkwardly close neighbours.
