The Growing ‘Posh-Poor Divide’: How Prosperity and Deprivation Now Sit Cheek by Jowl in Across England.

Within a postwar estate known as ‘The Nunny’, residents occupy homes only a few metres from their wealthier neighbours in the adjacent Scartho village. One six-foot-tall wall literally separates the two areas in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, blocking off roads and walkways that once linked them.

“It’s the posh-poor divide,” said a resident, aged 37. “It’s been like this since 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

Data from official figures reveals how deep disparity can run, at times over nothing more than a short distance of asphalt, a hedge row or a barrier. Years of budget cuts and underinvestment mean almost two-thirds of councils now contain a neighbourhood classified as one of the most deprived in the country.

The geographical widening of poverty has coincided with a sharp increase in the number of places where deprived and affluent people end up as immediate neighbours. In 2019, just 65 of the poorest areas adjoined one of the least deprived. That figure rose to 119 in the most recent data.

A Barrier Which Divides More Than Land

In Grimsby, the divide is the most pronounced in the UK and painfully obvious. The barrier is much more than a symbolic division; it causes very real difficulties for daily routines.

• The school commute that ought to take a quarter of an hour become an sixty-minute journey.
• Access to important amenities like grocery stores, schools and employment centres is made more difficult.
• The site often sees antisocial behaviour, with reports of rubbish being dumped over the wall and other issues.

“You try to have a well-kept home and garden, and then you live opposite that,” noted one resident, motioning at the corroded barricade.

Local Bonds Amidst Hardship

Within Centre4, workers stress that support transcends addresses. “Where you live is not a reliable indicator of your personal struggles,” explained chief executive a community leader.

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

Echoes Elsewhere: Stanhope in Ashford

This phenomenon is repeated across the country. The Stanhope estate in Ashford, Kent, a 1960s housing development, is in the 10% most deprived of areas in the country. It is closely bordered by large houses built in the early 2000s that are in the wealthiest tenth for employment and quality of surroundings.

“They might have larger properties, but here there’s more community,” said Phil Hockley, aged 63. “It’s likely many people over there don’t even speak to each other.”

The economic gap is clear: an average family home sells for about £275,000 on the estate, while across the divide equivalent homes fetch about £410,000.

Residents speak of a tangible feeling of being overlooked. “Our neighbourhood is neglected,” said resident Susan. “Over here our amenities have slowly been taken away, and the majority of the community problems here are to do with poverty.”

The rise in these ‘deprivation divides’ presents a portrait of an ever more segregated society, where wealth and deprivation are often uncomfortably close neighbours.