Jaywick’s continued decline and intensifying London poverty inform identical story of ‘damaged’ Britain

[ad_1] It’s Jaywick once more. For the fourth time in a row the tiny, apparently unprepossessing seaside village overlooking the north sea simply down the coast from Clacton in Essex has reluctantly claimed the unenviable title of England’s most disadvantaged neighbourhood.

High of the indices of a number of deprivation since 2010, Jaywick Sands, as soon as a well-liked vacation vacation spot for working-class Londoners, has change into a emblem of “damaged” Britain, an exemplar of financial neglect, austerity and social breakdown, compounded by geographic isolation.

Its native MP, Reform chief Nigel Farage, appeared unusually imprecise when requested about Jaywick’s travails on Thursday. Components of it, he opined, appeared “depressed,” including that he was “clearly unhappy that issues aren’t bettering extra shortly”. Nicely, yeah.

In actual fact, Jaywick is, on official deprivation measures, chronically disadvantaged: virtually uniquely, it's within the 10% worst-ranked neighbourhoods in England throughout all seven indicators of deprivation, from employment to earnings, well being, crime, entry to housing, and atmosphere.

This dismal knowledge image didn't inform the entire story, claimed Tendring’s council chief Mark Stephenson. He mentioned “progress” had been made since 2019, and paid tribute to the power of the local people: “Jaywick Sands is a really particular place, stuffed with coronary heart, satisfaction and actual group spirit.”

Regardless of the actuality, Jaywick’s sticky place on the prime of the rankings highlights a wider sample of seemingly mounted relative deprivation. At council degree, Blackpool, Middlesbrough and Birmingham’s place on the prime of the rankings additionally counsel a static deprivation hierarchy, unmoved by political fashions for “levelling up”.

These left-behind city and cities are primarily post-industrial areas within the north and Midlands the place residing requirements for a lot of have been in reverse, the place poverty ranges are excessive and in consequence, dissatisfaction with business-as-usual Westminster politics – spiced with a pointy resentment of the affluence of London and south-east – could be rife.

And but, the 2025 indices additionally reveal a extra dynamic story, wherein the parable of the capital as an oasis the place the streets are paved with gold and the spoilt inhabitants surf a continuous wave of wealth and privilege, is abruptly undermined.

In 31 primarily interior London neighbourhoods, the newest index reveals, virtually each resident baby lives in an earnings disadvantaged family. In knowledge phrases these neighbourhoods are small – 1,500 folks on common, so this might seek advice from a housing property or a gaggle of streets – however giant sufficient to be recognisably a “place”.

Within the borough of Tower Hamlets, 71% of youngsters dwell in earnings disadvantaged households, the index reveals, In Hackney, it’s 64% and Newham 60%. It could come as a shock to some that the share of youngsters in low earnings households is as excessive (53%) in supposedly woke, rich Islington as it's in Burnley.

For the primary time, the measures of earnings deprivation took account of excessive rents (a burden endemic to London, the place a privately rented two-bedroom flat can simply be £1,800 a month). By measuring family earnings after hire was paid (beforehand it measured earnings earlier than housing prices), a radically totally different image emerges.

In some ways this appears tutorial. Anybody aware of London understands profound hardship exists amid conspicuous wealth. But six years in the past, when the final indices have been printed, some London boroughs have been paradoxically falling down the relative deprivation rating, regardless of the very best charges of kid poverty within the nation.

This may occasionally have political reverberations. The most recent indices of deprivation will feed into the forthcoming native authority funding system. Labour-run councils within the north of England are indignant that the housing prices change will imply the promised reallocation of sources from the south is probably not as beneficiant as imagined.

For the primarily Labour-run boroughs of interior London, there's reduction that official recognition of the dire affect of its dysfunctional housing market means their funding allocations is probably not as depleted as anticipated. It's about time, they are saying, that excessive deprivation within the capital has been formally acknowledged.