In a postwar estate known as ‘The Nunny’, residents live in properties only several yards from their more affluent neighbours in the adjacent Scartho village. One six-foot-tall wall literally separates the two areas in the town of Grimsby, sealing off roads and walkways that previously linked them.
“It’s the posh-poor divide,” said Serenity Colley, 37. “It’s been like this since I’ve known. I doubt they’ll take it down because I suspect they’ll want to mix with us.”
Analysis of government figures reveals the extent of inequality often exists, sometimes across little more than a few metres of tarmac, a line of hedges or a barrier. Decades of austerity and underinvestment mean a majority of councils now contain a locality classified as one of the poorest in the country.
The geographical widening of poverty has coincided with a significant increase in the number of locations where deprived and affluent people end up as immediate neighbours. Just a few years ago, only 65 of the poorest neighbourhoods bordered one of the least deprived. This number rose to 119 in the most recent data.
In Grimsby, the divide is the most pronounced in the country and starkly apparent. The wall is much more than a symbolic divide; it causes very real difficulties for everyday life.
“You try to have a well-kept home and garden, and then you live opposite that,” said one local, motioning at the rusted barricade.
At Centre4, workers stress that support transcends postcodes. “Where you live doesn’t necessarily indicate your personal struggles,” explained chief executive a community leader.
Regardless of being placed in the lowest 10% for multiple deprivation indicators, the estate boasts a strong sense and sense of togetherness among its residents. Meanwhile, Scartho is classified among the least deprived 10% nationally.
This phenomenon is mirrored nationally. The Stanhope estate in Ashford, Kent, a 1960s overspill estate, is in the most disadvantaged tenth of areas in the country. It is closely bordered by spacious houses built in the 2000s that sit in the wealthiest tenth for employment and quality of surroundings.
“They might have bigger houses, but here there’s a stronger community,” said a long-term resident, 63. “It’s likely many people in the new builds never even talk to each other.”
The financial divide is clear: an average family home costs about £275,000 on the Stanhope estate, while across the divide equivalent homes fetch about £410,000.
Residents describe a tangible feeling of neglect. “This part of the community gets ignored,” said holistic health worker Susan Riley-Nevers. “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 ‘inequality borders’ presents a picture of an ever more divided England, where wealth and deprivation are frequently uncomfortably close neighbours.
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