England’s 30 poorest towns and cities revealed
Tom Belger
21 June 2018
The most deprived areas around the country
There are many reasons why previously prosperous towns and cities in England face serious hardship today. Low incomes, levels of employment, health, education and crime are all factors in how deprivation is measured officially by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Here we put their most recently available figures from 2016 under the microscope to discover the poorest urban areas across the country.
30. Barnsley
The south Yorkshire town, just north of Sheffield, once thrived through its collieries and glassmaking, but the industries gradually dwindled throughout the 20th century. Modern life expectancy is among the lowest in the country, with local men expected to die more than a decade earlier than those in wealthy parts of London.
29. Peterborough
Lying 75 miles north of London in the east of England, Peterborough expanded significantly in the 20th century as Britain’s leading centre of brick production. The city has an impressive cathedral and was developed as a New Town in the 1960s. Today however, parts of Peterborough face significant challenges, with around a quarter of children in poverty and high teenage pregnancy rates.
28. Sunderland
The proud northeastern town on the River Wear saw its once-great shipbuilding and coal mining industries fall into decline in the late 20th century, with one in five people unemployed during the 1980s. Some sectors have seen a revival including the service industry and car manufacturing. But thousands of children in Sunderland grow up in poverty with rates of teenage pregnancy above the national average and lower than average school performance.
27. Hartlepool
Hartlepool’s iron works, shipyards and docks put the port town on the map in the Victorian age, but went into long decline in the decades after the Second World War. Some industries including engineering have thrived in the town, with a nuclear power station one of its biggest employers. The old docklands have also been transformed into a pretty, modern marina, but the town has struggled with unemployment and falling life expectancy in recent years.
26. Rotherham
This south Yorkshire town has struggled with the decline of its key industries, including a steelworks that once employed 10,000 workers. More than one in five households have no members in work, but advanced manufacturing has seen big investment in recent years and its economy is currently growing fast.
25. Wolverhampton
Huge numbers of bikes and cars used to roll off the production lines of Wolverhampton, a city near Birmingham in the West Midlands.
It still has a large aerospace and engineering sector, but bikes are no longer made in the city and unemployment rates have ranked among the highest in Britain. One recent survey even claimed levels of happiness were among the lowest in the country.
24. Bolton
Ten miles northwest of Manchester, Bolton was once one of the world’s greatest cotton spinning centres. Textile industries flourished after Flemish weavers arrived more than five centuries ago, but Britain’s cotton industry fell into terminal decline after the First World War. Cotton production was all but consigned to history in the 1980s and the modern town has struggled to become an economic powerhouse once more.
A recent study found almost one in four of the town’s shops lay empty.
23. Leeds
The huge pull of London means few English regions have maintained serious financial hubs of their own, but West Yorkshire is one of them. Leeds however, has a thriving commercial heart with strong finance, banking and insurance sectors and was Britain’s fastest growing city in 2016. Yet, the city also has some of the country’s poorest neighbourhoods including one where more than half of local children grow up without enough to live on.
22. Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull, known as Hull, has an impressive maritime history. Whaling, fishing, global trade and deep-sea trawling all provided much-valued jobs for its residents over the years. But the city's economy was devastated by the UK’s defeat in the 20th century “Cod Wars” with Iceland, losing key fishing rights. Disposable incomes and healthy life expectancy are among the UK's lowest, but many hope Hull's status as 2017 UK City of Culture could fuel the town’s revival.
21. Stoke-on-Trent
Stoke-on-Trent, better known as Stoke, is the home of England’s pottery industry, which once employed 20,000 people and had some of Europe's deepest and most effective coal mines. But a former MP said the decline of pottery, steel and coal in the region had a “Detroit-style impact”. A regeneration effort is underway, but one in four people are economically inactive and shop vacancy rates are among the highest in England.
20. Halifax
Halifax began growing fast as a hub for wool manufacturing five centuries ago. It became well-known in the 20th century as the home of the Halifax bank and Mackintosh’s, once one of the world’s biggest toffee manufacturers. But today parts of the west and north of the west Yorkshire town face serious deprivation with house prices in Halifax the seventh lowest in the country.
19. Burnley
Burnley helped power the Industrial Revolution as a mining town, an engineering hub and one of the biggest makers of cotton cloth on the planet. But the Lancashire town saw a steady decline in its economy and population as British textiles struggled against foreign competition in the 20th century. It still hosts some big manufacturers but workers earn over £100 less per week than the national average. Burnley also faces deep social ills, including high drug death rates.
18. Blackpool
Blackpool boomed in the Victorian era as a legendary seaside resort with new railways linking it to fast-growing industrial towns. It was battered by plummeting visitor numbers from the mid-20th century, as changing tastes and cheap flights saw holidaymakers head elsewhere. Decline took its toll, with 8.5% of men still unemployed compared to 4.5% nationally, but its landmarks and tourism industry still pull millions of visitors a year.
17. Manchester
From its central role in the industrial revolution to its spectacular success in music, football and much else Manchester has often packed a cultural punch. Once the world’s largest cotton marketplace, its industry and canals took a beating in the recessions of the late 20th century.
Poverty and crime are serious challenges for parts of the city today, but central Manchester has thrived in recent decades through tourism, shopping, finance, insurance and creative industries.
16. South Shields
Deprivation has risen faster in the coastal town of South Shields than anywhere else in England in recent years amid government cutbacks and economic struggles. A few years ago it had the country’s highest youth unemployment rate, though local authorities have tried hard to lead regeneration plans. The town, five miles from Newcastle in the north east, has seen its once giant coal and shipbuilding industries unable to compete with cheaper rivals overseas.
15. Grimsby
Grimsby boomed in the 19th and 20th centuries as one of the largest fishing ports in the world, attracting workers from as far as Devon and east London. The Lincolnshire port town once exported seafood far and wide but its fortunes slid after fishing quotas were introduced. One in four young people were out of work in 2011 but the town has successfully carved a new niche in processing, storing, researching and distributing fish.
14. St Helens
“Ex terra lucem” is St Helens's motto, translating as “from the earth, light”. It reflects the town’s once booming coal mines and pioneering glass factories. Some factories remain, but they have shrunk and the last mines closed in the 1990s. The authorities are now grappling with social woes, from children making little progress at school to alarming rates of alcohol-related illness. Built on the former Sutton Manor Colliery, the Dream statue (pictured) is an example of recent investment.
13. Blackburn
Once called the “weaving capital of the world”, the former mill town led the way in textiles for centuries. However the industry died out in the 20th century and thousands of jobs went with it. The area now has high numbers of under-qualified workers and children growing up in poverty.
12. Dudley
Dudley is a historic town that saw its biggest period of growth through coal and limestone mining in the 18th and 19th centuries. It benefited from its closeness to the industrial powerhouse of Birmingham. Today however, the West Midlands town is down on its luck with one in five households having nobody in work.
11. Bradford
Lister’s Mill was once the largest silk factory in the world, but the same economic trends that hit other nearby towns and cities devastated its textile industry. The mill closed in 1992 and the town’s fortunes tumbled as work dried up and now employment rates and average disposable incomes in the city both remain low. More recently a range of regeneration initiatives have been launched and the revival of Lister’s Mill as housing in the 2000s looked like a promising sign.
10. Rochdale
Rochdale’s reputation has taken a dive in recent years in the wake of a string of child sexual abuse revelations. The horrifying scandals ruined lives and may also have dented the economy of the town, northeast of Manchester, with the number of jobs plummeting by 12% in the past decade. Wages and skill levels were among the lowest in the country, though the authorities say private investment in the town is on the up.
9. Birkenhead
Hundreds of significant vessels have been built in Birkenhead’s Cammel Laird shipyard over the past two centuries, from the CSS Alabama in 1862 to forthcoming polar research ship the RRS Sir David Attenborough. The northwestern town grew around shipbuilding on the River Mersey, both boosting and benefiting from the growth of nearby Liverpool. Many jobs slipped away in the late 20th century and workers now have among the UK's lowest average pay.
8. Salford
Parts of Salford have enjoyed a revival in recent decades, best highlighted by the BBC’s move from London to the redeveloped Salford Quays in 2004. Yet the city just outside Manchester has its fair share of problems, from poverty to alcoholism, with the highest drink-related NHS prescriptions in the country. Key industries have withered away too, with coal mining abandoned by the Second World War and cotton spinning no more by the mid-1970s.
7. Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough’s iconic transport bridge over the river Tees is an enduring sign of the North Yorkshire town’s industrial history.
The town boomed after the discovery of iron ore nearby in the 1840s and by the turn of the century it was producing a third of Britain’s output. Heavy industry faced an uphill struggle to survive by the late 20th century and a major steel plant recently closed its doors. The town is now blighted by high unemployment, drug problems and low social mobility.
6. Nottingham
The town of Robin Hood was once famous for the bicycles and lace made in its workshops. But Nottingham, in the East Midlands, contracted as Asian rivals out-produced and undercut its textile manufacturers in the decades after the Second World War. Only 62.4% of residents are economically active today, compared to 78.4% for England as a whole. Weekly pay is also more than £100 a week less than the national average.
5. Birmingham
Birmingham has been called the first manufacturing town in the world, powering Britain’s growth and major technological developments in the Industrial Revolution. The country’s second largest city was left reeling from the recession of the early 1980s. Parts of the city have thrived in recent decades, but more than one in three children still grows up in poverty.
4. Walsall
Far more shops lie empty in Walsall than in most of the country, with one in four units vacant. With low average wages and more than one in five households out of work today, it has struggled to reinvent itself in the wake of industrial decline. A major regeneration programme, known as Gigaport, is in the works, but Walsall saw most of its distinctive leather factories shut up shop without many other employment opportunities to replace them.
3. Liverpool
Liverpool might be famous worldwide for the Beatles and its distinguished football history, but some of Britain’s poorest neighbourhoods lie just a few minutes from its beautiful waterfront and popular stadiums. The northwestern city suffered heavily as new container ships consigned traditional dock jobs to history from the 1970s, with unemployment, social unrest, drug use and crime spreading. But the city has seen major investment and become a shopping, tourist and culture destination.
2. West Bromwich
The West Midlands was one of Britain’s richest regions in the 1960s, with manufacturing in areas like West Bromwich powering its growth.
But global competition and a lack of government support in the 1980s saw industry hit the wall in West Bromwich as elsewhere. Many manufacturers do remain in the town, near Birmingham, but nearly three in 10 people in the wider Sandwell borough are not economically active.
1. Oldham
Oldham, Greater Manchester, has a proud history as one of the largest cotton-producing areas on the globe. But the mills were destroyed by foreign competition and it struggled to find an alternative route to prosperity. Today parts of the northeastern town are the poorest neighbourhoods in Britain. One local man told the Manchester Evening News: “There is nothing for kids around here. There are children that come around and knock on your door, saying ‘can we sing you a song for £1?’”
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