The Growing ‘Posh-Poor Divide’: How Affluence and Deprivation Are Found Cheek by Jowl in England.
Within Nunsthorpe, inhabitants live in homes only several yards from their wealthier counterparts in the adjacent Scartho village. One six-foot-tall barricade literally separates the two communities in the town of Grimsby, sealing off roads and walkways that once connected them.
“It’s the divide between rich and poor,” said Serenity Colley, 37. “It’s been like this for as long as I’ve known. I doubt they’ll take it down because I don’t think they’ll want to mix with us.”
An Increasingly Common National Picture
Analysis of government statistics shows how deep disparity often exists, at times over nothing more than a few metres of asphalt, a hedge row or a barrier. Years of austerity and underinvestment have led to a situation where almost two-thirds of local authorities now have a locality classified as one of the poorest in the country.
The spread of poverty has coincided with a sharp rise in the quantity of locations where disadvantaged and affluent people end up as immediate neighbours. In 2019, just 65 of the poorest areas adjoined one of the wealthiest. That figure increased to 119 in the most recent data.
A Wall That Does More Than Separate Land
At this Lincolnshire site, the divide is the biggest in the country and painfully apparent. The wall is much more than a symbolic division; it creates very real difficulties for everyday life.
- The school commute that ought to take a quarter of an hour turn into an hour-long detour.
- Access to key amenities like grocery stores, educational facilities and care homes is hindered.
- The area can attract vandalism and loitering, with reports of litter being dumped over the wall and related issues.
“You try to have a nice house and nice garden, and then you reside facing that,” said one resident, motioning at the rusted barricade.
Community Spirit Against a Backdrop of Hardship
At Centre4, workers stress that support does not recognise addresses. “Where you live doesn’t necessarily indicate your level of challenge,” said chief executive Tracey Good.
Despite ranking in the most deprived 10% for multiple deprivation indicators, the estate boasts a fierce loyalty and feeling of community among its residents. By contrast, Scartho is classified among the least deprived 10% nationally.
Echoes Elsewhere: An Estate in Kent
This phenomenon is mirrored nationally. The Stanhope estate in Kent, a 1960s housing development, is in the 10% most deprived of areas in the country. It is immediately adjacent by spacious detached homes built in the early 2000s that are in the wealthiest tenth for employment and quality of surroundings.
“They may possess bigger houses, but here there’s a stronger community,” commented Phil Hockley, aged 63. “It’s likely many people over there don’t even speak to each other.”
The economic divide is evident: an typical three-bedroom house sells for about £275,000 on the Stanhope estate, while across the divide equivalent homes go for about £410,000.
Residents describe a palpable sense of neglect. “Our neighbourhood gets ignored,” said holistic health worker Susan Riley-Nevers. “Over here our amenities have slowly been taken away, and most of the issues we face here are related to financial hardship.”
The rise in these ‘inequality borders’ paints a portrait of an increasingly segregated society, where prosperity and need are frequently uncomfortably in close proximity.