A Growing ‘Wealth-Poverty Gap’: The Way Prosperity and Hardship Now Sit Side by Side in England.

In a postwar estate known as ‘The Nunny’, residents live in properties just several yards from their wealthier counterparts in the adjacent Scartho. A six-foot-tall barricade literally separates the two communities in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, sealing off roads and walkways that once linked them.

“This is the divide between rich and poor,” said a resident, 37. “It has been there since I’ve known. I doubt they’ll bring it down because I suspect they’ll want to mix with us.”

An Increasingly Common Pattern Across the Country

Analysis of government figures shows the extent of inequality often exists, sometimes over little more than a few metres of tarmac, a line of hedges or a barrier. Years of austerity and lack of funding mean a majority of local authorities now contain a locality classified as one of the poorest in the country.

The geographical widening of deprivation has coincided with a sharp increase in the quantity of locations where disadvantaged and affluent people find themselves living side by side. In 2019, just 65 of the poorest areas bordered one of the least deprived. This number rose to 119 in the latest data.

A Barrier Which Divides More Than Space

At this Lincolnshire site, the divide is the biggest in the country and painfully obvious. The barrier transcends being just a symbolic division; it causes very real difficulties for everyday life.

• The school commute that ought to take a quarter of an hour turn into an sixty-minute detour.
• Access to key amenities like supermarkets, educational facilities and care homes is made more difficult.
• The site can attract vandalism and loitering, with reports of litter being dumped over the wall and other issues.

“You try to maintain a well-kept home and garden, and then you live opposite that,” said one resident, motioning at the rusted barricade.

Community Spirit Amidst Challenges

At Centre4, workers emphasise that need does not recognise postcodes. “Where you live is not a reliable indicator of your level of challenge,” explained director a community leader.

Despite ranking in the most deprived 10% for income, employment, education, health and crime, Nunsthorpe boasts a strong sense and sense of togetherness among its residents. Meanwhile, Scartho is classified among the most prosperous 10% overall.

Echoes Elsewhere: Stanhope in Ashford

This pattern is mirrored across the country. The Stanhope estate in Ashford, Kent, a 1960s overspill estate, is in the most disadvantaged tenth of neighbourhoods in the country. It is closely bordered by spacious houses built in the 2000s that are in the wealthiest tenth for employment and quality of surroundings.

“They may possess bigger houses, but here there’s more community,” said a long-term resident, 63. “You’ll probably find a lot of people in the new builds never even talk to each other.”

The economic divide is clear: an typical three-bedroom house costs about £275,000 on the estate, while on the other side comparable homes go for about £410,000.

Locals describe a palpable sense of being overlooked. “This part of the community gets ignored,” stated holistic health worker Susan. “Over here our facilities have slowly been taken away, and the majority of the community problems here are related to poverty.”

The rise in these ‘deprivation divides’ presents a picture of an ever more segregated England, where wealth and deprivation are often uncomfortably in close proximity.