A poverty indicator tool created by Church Urban Fund has shown that Alderley Edge is amongst the most affluent communities in the country.
Alderley Edge is shown to be the second most affluent in England with 4% of children thought to be living in poverty, compared to 62% in the Toxteth (East) and 64% in Toxteth (West) in Liverpool. The predicted male life expectancy for Alderley Edge is 79 years and 87 years for females.
The online tool was launched yesterday by the Church Urban Fund, a Church of England charity working to tackle poverty in England. Based on the CofE parish system, it allows anyone to calculate their local community's level of deprivation as well as its regional and national ranking.
Using a combination of Government poverty indicators, including life expectancy, child poverty and pensioner poverty, the tool has also re-affirmed the notion of a north/south divide in England and demonstrated a large disparity between the richest and poorest neighbourhoods.
Communities in areas of Liverpool, Manchester and Blackpool are shown to be the very poorest in England, whilst the ten most affluent communities are mostly located in the south east, with some areas in Surrey and Berkshire having just 1% of children living in poverty.
Paul Hackwood, the Chair of Trustees at Church Urban Fund said: "We urge people to go online and try out the tool and find out where their community ranks in terms of poverty indicators. We hope it will create a much greater awareness of poverty in England and bring people from affluent and less affluent areas together to think about what could be done to support those that are living in poverty."
The Top 10 Communities identified by Church Urban Fund are: Camberley Heatherside (Surrey), Alderley Edge, Barkham (Berkshire), Brightwell (Suffolk), Comberton (Cambridgeshire), Ingatestone (Essex), Harpenden (Herts), Houghton on the Hill (Leicestershire), Rowledge (Surrey) and Wheldrake (York).
The Bottom 10 Communities are: Toxteth East (Liverpool), Shaw Road (Oldham), Anfield (Liverpool), Collyhurst (Manchester), Kirkholt (Rochdale), Toxteth West (Liverpool), Heyworth Street (Everton), Queens Road (Everton), South Shore (Blackpool) and Cannon Park (Middlesbrough).
The poverty tool can be viewed at: http://www.cuf.org.uk/povertyinengland
