The Rising ‘Posh-Poor Divide’: The Way Affluence and Deprivation Now Sit Cheek by Jowl in England.

Within a postwar estate known as ‘The Nunny’, residents live in properties only a few metres from their more affluent counterparts in nearby Scartho. One 1.8-metre-high barricade literally separates the two areas in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, blocking off paths and streets that previously connected them.

“This is the divide between rich and poor,” remarked Serenity Colley, aged 37. “It’s been like this for as long as I’ve known. I don’t think they’ll bring it down because I don’t think they’ll want to associate with us.”

An Increasingly Common National Picture

Analysis of government statistics shows how deep disparity often exists, at times across nothing more than a few metres of asphalt, a hedge row or a barrier. Decades of austerity and lack of funding have led to a situation where a majority of councils now have a neighbourhood classified as one of the poorest in the country.

This geographical widening of poverty has coincided with a significant rise in the quantity of locations where deprived and well-off people find themselves as immediate neighbours. In 2019, only 65 of the most deprived areas bordered one of the wealthiest. This number rose to 119 in the most recent data.

A Barrier Which Does More Than Separate Space

At this Lincolnshire site, the divide is the biggest in the UK and starkly obvious. The barrier transcends being just a metaphorical divide; it creates tangible difficulties for daily routines.

• The school commute that should take 15-20 minutes become an sixty-minute journey.
• Reaching important services like supermarkets, schools and care homes is hindered.
• The area often sees antisocial behaviour, with instances of rubbish being dumped over the wall and related issues.

“You try to have a nice house and nice garden, and then you reside facing that,” noted one local, motioning at the corroded metal wall.

Community Spirit Amidst Hardship

At a local community centre, staff emphasise that support does not recognise postcodes. “Your postcode doesn’t necessarily indicate your personal struggles,” said chief executive a community leader.

Regardless of being placed in the lowest 10% for income, employment, education, health and crime, Nunsthorpe boasts a strong sense and feeling of togetherness among its residents. By contrast, Scartho is classified among the least deprived 10% nationally.

Echoes Elsewhere: An Estate in Kent

This phenomenon is repeated nationally. The Stanhope area in Kent, a 1960s overspill estate, is in the most disadvantaged tenth of neighbourhoods in the country. It is immediately adjacent by spacious houses built in the early 2000s that sit in the wealthiest tenth for employment and living environment.

“They might have larger properties, but here there’s more community,” said a long-term resident, 63. “It’s likely a lot of people in the new builds never even talk to each other.”

The financial gap is evident: an average family home costs about £275,000 on the Stanhope estate, while across the divide equivalent properties go for about £410,000.

Locals speak of a tangible sense of being overlooked. “This part of the community gets ignored,” stated holistic health worker Susan Riley-Nevers. “Over here our amenities have gradually disappeared, and most of the community problems here are related to financial hardship.”

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