Deprivation worsens for council estates

A report to the forthcoming meeting of the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) Executive is recommending that 11 council estates be dumped from the borough's Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy and shows that deprivation in the 5 that remain in it has seriously worsened between 2004 and 2007.

The Report is a return to proposals from the Council's Regeneration Team that emerged twelve months ago and were challenged by RoFTRA's Neighbourhood Renewal Conference in September. Now, the dumping of 11 of the 16 council estates included in the last five year's Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy is being justified by use of the recently published Index of Multiple Deprivation.

If agreed by Friday's meeting, the council estates that will no longer be at the centre of the borough's regeneration activity are: Back o'th Moss (Heywood), Moorclose & Baytree (Middleton), The Cray and Birch View (Penines) and Brotherod, Brimrod, Greave, Spotland, Syke and Turf Hill (Rochdale).

That will leave only five remaining: Lower Falinge, Freehold, Kirkholt, Cloverhall & Bellshill and Smallbridge, leaving none in Heywood or Middleton, nor any east of Smallbridge.

The report does include the generally dreadful truth about how deprivation in these five has worsened, based on assessments in the new Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). It uses what it calls Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs). These each have on average a population of 1,500. There are 34,378 in England & Wales (135 in Rochdale borough) and they are all ranked from 1 (the most deprived) to 34,378 (least deprived).

In this league table, Smallbridge has slumped 298 places from 769 to 471, Cloverhall & Bellshill by 320 places from 423 to 103, Freehold from 16 to 11 and part of Lower Falinge from 18 to 15. Kirkholt, the borough's largest council estate has three LSOAs which have all dropped: 174 to 17; 683 to 467 and 1186 to 832.

The report doesn't give details of what has happened to the other 11 in the same period.