Survey of UK’s poorest areas highlights Bradford parish

ENGLAND’S poorest parish areas have been revealed in church research which names an area of Bradford as one of the most deprived.

St Augustine’s parish in the Otley Road area of Bradford (BD3 ODW) has a life expectancy for men of just 70 years, seven below the national average.

And 36 per cent of children in the Otley Road parish are living in poverty as are 41 per cent of pensioners, according to the Church of England’s Church Urban Fund charity.

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The charity has a new mobile phone app which reveals poverty hot spots – mainly inner cities and coastal areas.

The app demonstrates just how close some of the most affluent areas are to communities suffering from deprivation. In many places, deprivation and relative affluence can be found in the same community.

In Ilkley parish six per cent of children live in poverty, and 17 per cent of adults have no qualifications. In St Oswald’s, a parish in Bradford (BD5 9DH), 38 per cent of children live in poverty and 40 per cent of adults have no qualifications.

Jan de Villiers, of Wellsprings Together Bradford, which works with the Church Urban Fund, said: “This year’s figures show that deprivation is particularly concentrated in Northern industrial cities, but what people will find when they use the tool is that poverty is everywhere.

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“For people living in these inner city areas where traditional industries have declined, it feels like the recession hit in the 1980s and never really went away. We think of these and other communities as ‘neglected’, but we’ve seen that people in these towns really look out for each other.

People in the poorest areas are running debt counselling services, donating to foodbanks and supporting their vulnerable neighbours. I hope everyone reading will play with our app, explore deprivation where they live and help us to tackle poverty.”

More information can be found at www.cuf.org.uk/poverty-in-numbers2013.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that Yorkshire people are among the least prepared in the event of losing their income. Within seven days the average Yorkshire family would be reliant on benefits or family, according to Legal & General. The average UK family could get by on savings for 57 days.