A Growing ‘Posh-Poor Divide’: The Way Prosperity and Deprivation Now Sit Side by Side in England.

In Nunsthorpe, residents occupy homes only a few metres from their more affluent counterparts in the adjacent Scartho village. One 1.8-metre-high barricade literally separates the two areas in the town of Grimsby, sealing off paths and streets that once connected them.

“This is the divide between rich and poor,” remarked 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 Pattern Across the Country

Data from official statistics reveals the extent of disparity can run, at times across nothing more than a short distance of tarmac, a line of hedges or a barrier. Years of austerity and lack of funding mean almost two-thirds of local authorities now have a locality ranking as one of the poorest in the nation.

This spread of deprivation has coincided with a significant increase in the number of places where disadvantaged and affluent people end up living side by side. Just a few years ago, just 65 of the most deprived areas bordered one of the wealthiest. That figure rose to 119 in the latest data.

A Barrier Which Divides More Than Space

At this Lincolnshire site, the gap is the biggest in the country and painfully obvious. The wall transcends being just a symbolic divide; it creates very real difficulties for daily routines.

• The school commute that should take 15-20 minutes become an sixty-minute detour.
• Reaching important amenities like grocery stores, educational facilities and care homes is made more difficult.
• The site often sees vandalism and loitering, with instances of litter being dumped over the wall and other problems.

“You try to have a nice house and nice garden, and then you live opposite that,” noted one resident, motioning at the rusted metal wall.

Local Bonds Against a Backdrop of Challenges

Within Centre4, staff emphasise that need does not recognise postcodes. “Where you live is not a reliable indicator of your level of challenge,” explained chief executive Tracey Good.

Regardless of being placed in the most deprived 10% for income, employment, education, health and crime, the estate retains a fierce loyalty and feeling of togetherness among its inhabitants. By contrast, Scartho is classified among the least deprived 10% nationally.

A Similar Story: 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 areas in England. It is immediately adjacent by spacious detached homes built in the early 2000s that sit in the wealthiest tenth for job prospects and living environment.

“They may possess bigger houses, but here there’s more community,” said Phil Hockley, 63. “It’s likely a lot of people in the new builds don’t even speak to each other.”

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

Locals describe a palpable feeling of being overlooked. “Our neighbourhood gets ignored,” stated holistic health worker Susan. “Over here our facilities have gradually disappeared, and most of the issues we face here are to do with financial hardship.”

The rise in these ‘deprivation divides’ paints a portrait of an ever more segregated England, where prosperity and need are often awkwardly close neighbours.