A Rising ‘Wealth-Poverty Gap’: How Prosperity and Deprivation Are Found Cheek by Jowl in England.

In Nunsthorpe, residents occupy homes only a few metres from their more affluent neighbours in the adjacent Scartho village. A 1.8-metre-high wall literally separates the two communities in the town of Grimsby, sealing off roads and walkways that previously connected them.

“It’s the divide between rich and poor,” said a resident, aged 37. “It has been there since I’ve known. I don’t think they’ll take it down because I suspect they’ll want to associate with us.”

An Increasingly Common National Picture

Analysis of official figures reveals the extent of inequality can run, sometimes across nothing more than a short distance of tarmac, a line of hedges or a barrier. Years of austerity and underinvestment have led to a situation where a majority of local authorities now have a neighbourhood classified as one of the most deprived in the nation.

The spread of poverty has coincided with a significant increase in the quantity of locations where deprived and affluent people end up as immediate neighbours. In 2019, only 65 of the most deprived areas adjoined one of the least deprived. This number increased to 119 in the most recent data.

A Barrier Which Divides More Than Land

At this Lincolnshire site, the gap is the most pronounced in the UK and starkly obvious. The wall transcends being just a symbolic division; it causes very real difficulties for everyday life.

• The school commute that should take a quarter of an hour become an sixty-minute journey.
• Access to key amenities like supermarkets, schools and employment centres 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 well-kept home and garden, and then you live opposite that,” said one resident, motioning at the rusted metal wall.

Local Bonds Amidst Hardship

At Centre4, workers stress that need does not recognise postcodes. “Your postcode is not a reliable indicator of your personal struggles,” said director a community leader.

Despite ranking in the most deprived 10% for multiple deprivation indicators, Nunsthorpe boasts a strong sense and feeling of togetherness among its residents. By contrast, the neighbouring area is classified among the most prosperous 10% overall.

Echoes Elsewhere: Stanhope in Ashford

This phenomenon is repeated nationally. The Stanhope area in Kent, a mid-century housing development, is in the 10% most deprived of neighbourhoods in the country. It is closely bordered by spacious detached homes built in the 2000s that are in the wealthiest tenth for job prospects and quality of surroundings.

“They might have larger properties, but here there’s more community,” commented a long-term resident, aged 63. “It’s likely many people in the new builds don’t even speak to each other.”

The economic divide is clear: an typical family home costs about £275,000 on the estate, while across the divide equivalent homes go for about £410,000.

Locals speak of a tangible sense of being overlooked. “Our neighbourhood gets ignored,” said holistic health worker Susan Riley-Nevers. “Over here our facilities have gradually disappeared, and most of the community problems here are to do with financial hardship.”

The increase in these ‘deprivation divides’ paints a picture of an increasingly divided society, where wealth and deprivation are frequently awkwardly close neighbours.