What shapes prosperity for people in Heath?
“The newer communities really like the Borough, they think it is a nice place to live and it feels quite safe. But the communities that have been here quite a while feel differently”
Natalie, mid-30s, interview 2017.
This section shares Prosperity Index data and stories about Heath. It describes what people living in Heath say about prosperity and living a good life in east London, and how people are experiencing changes linked to regeneration. The perspective and stories shared here are based on interviews and group discussions with people living and working in Heath. The interviews were carried out by citizen scientists in 2017.
Heath residents focused on the following themes when talking about prosperity and opportunities to live well: community and social change, housing, jobs and education.
Read more about the area and see the Prosperity Index data for Heath.
Heath Park Community Halls entry, 2017
community and social change
A changing sense of community for long-term residents linked to social change in the neighbourhood were two of the most common themes that people discussed in interviews.
Long-term residents talked often about how Heath and Dagenham have changed rapidly in recent years. People described how many white, working class residents had moved out of the neighbourhood and people with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds had moved in. These perspectives reflect the diversification of the Borough of Barking and Dagenham throughout the 2000s.
The result for long-term residents is a sense of alienation from community life: people felt that they no longer knew their neighbours, no longer felt safe, and were surrounded by people with whom they had little in common.
Here are a few examples of how older, long-term residents spoke about the changes in the neighbourhood and their feelings of loss of community:
Sue: Have you seen the area change much?
Tom: Massively. It’s massively changed.
Sue: In what ways has it changed?
Tom: It’s changed for the worst. There’s no community in Dagenham now, I don’t think there is. Not anymore, no. When I was a kid growing up, kids could go out and play. All the neighbours would be out keepin’ watch of each other. I just don’t think we’ve got that. There’s lots of violence and gangs it’s coming back from London, from that way, you know.
Sue: […] what are the main challenges do you think people in the neighbourhood face?
Alf: I think change! For a lot of people this Borough has changed dramatically, I think especially for the old. […] So I think possibly it is the change, and it’s […] quite a transient Borough as well, people in and out, in and out, and it is awkward, you get used to a neighbour and strike up a friendship with them, a few months down the line they’re gone. Someone else moves in. Then in the end you think ‘oh what’s the point!’. If they’re only gonna be here for a few months.
Sue: Do you think this is an area where everyone can have a good or prosperous life?
Doreen: Well, I don’t know about that. I don’t know many people that live in this area now.
Sue: How come? What, have a lot of people moved away have they?
Doreen: Well, all me old neighbours.. I can walk down my street, I got a long street, there’s only two people I know. All the rest are foreigners … Poland, Africa, India, China, I’ve seen all different nationalities. So they don’t mix with us. No, you can drop dead in your ‘ouse now and no one would know.
Interviews with residents from BME backgrounds showed a different perspective. For example, Nilaja, a young Black African woman who had lived in Heath for seven years says:
““there is a community spirit here. There is an after school club in the library and I go and help out there. It’s really good and I volunteer there. It’s children having help with homework and things like that.” ”
Ephrem, a Black African pastor of a local church, also indicates, albeit in modest way, that there is a local sense of community:
Sue: […] Do you think this is a neighbourhood where everyone can have a good life?
Ephrem: I think so. Since I came here, it’s a peaceful community, I’ve not encountered any robbery or nothing, people are smiling at each other.
These are positive descriptions of local community life. It is important to emphasise that many white British younger people in Barking and Dagenham are also reluctant to see the changes in the borough as negative. For example, Nicki, a white woman in her mid 30s says:
Nicki: Barking has changed a lot. I think Dagenham less so. Dagenham, Heath Park .. I think things are starting to [change now] and people are starting to feel the differences now.Sue: Is that quite a good thing or a bad thing?
Nicki: I like diversity and where different communities live together and that is always a question depending on who you ask. You will definitely have elements in that community that don’t like it, think it’s a bad thing, it’s too crowded and too many people and you’ll have others will have similar views to us.
housing
Heath residents held divergent views on the topic of housing. Lack of satisfaction with the availability of council housing was not uncommon. Some people attributed the difficult housing circumstances to immigration and discrimination against white British households:
Sue: Do you think opportunities and quality of life has got better or worse in the past few years?
Jay: Worse! Definitely worse.
Dee: This is another issue that we face. There is opportunities out there but not for people like us. Housing – if you’re white and you’re British you struggle to get a house. I mean I’ve got, his missus has got a baby, they kept taking him […] off the housing list because they don’t come under priority and if you’re a Muslim or something like that you are on the priority list.
Other Heath residents said that they were satisfied with the quality and availability of accommodation.
Rusholme Avenue, 2017
““There was a big programme to improve the housing stock a few years back, it must have been about 10 years ago, and they went round to the houses and put new roofs on them all as they were built back in the 1930s, so they were coming up to 80 years old. They put new roofs on the existing council houses and put new windows and everything. I think the following year after that they installed gas-fired central heating as well, so even though the houses were built back in the 1930s they had double glazing, new roofs, central heating, so everything was great.” ”
jobs and education
“[...] In this Borough there is lots of help. I don’t know if you know, about the job shops that we’ve got, they will search for you, they’ll put you on short courses, they do interview skills, everything! So if people wanna get a job, it’s there.”
Job opportunities, jobs and education were recurrent themes throughout the interviews, often discussed as intertwined with one another, and once again the data point to divergences in opinion.
While some people thought that there were poor job opportunities available to local people, others said that there are decent jobs available for those who proactively seek employment. Jobs and job opportunities are a contested issue that indicates divisions within Barking and Dagenham over questions of responsibility and entitlement, opportunity and inclusion, which may exacerbate already existing problems of feeling of decline.
Sue: Do you think there are jobs that are seen as good enough to consider coming off benefits […]? Are those sort of Jobs available, good quality jobs?
Adrian: They are not in abundance are they? And these zero hour contracts, and people say it’s getting me in trouble with the social, can’t work seven hours the next week. I do think the government has got to say ‘this is the bare minimum that people need’. And getting them to do it slowly rather than, it is awkward and it is difficult. Getting a job is a job in itself. It really is.
Yet other people described other factors they felt prevented them from getting good jobs including immigration and poor educational attainment. Heath had the lowest levels of educational attainment of the five neighbourhood study sites, as 55% of all respondents claimed to have no qualifications at all.
Citizen scientist Carrie, interviewed a group of young people to understand their views on education and future jobs:
Carrie: How confident do you feel that a job or good job will be available to you in the future?
Jason: So many people coming into this country and taking our jobs, so there’s none for us for future generations.
Carrie: So you don't feel the jobs are there …
Jason: Limited.
Carrie: Limited. Is that specifically in this local borough?
Jason: No it’s all over, it's everywhere.
Simon: But it also goes back to your grades as well.
Jason: If you don't get good grades you don't get in.
Simon: Like if you’ve like flunked your GCSEs and didn’t get the grades you need you don't get good jobs. It all turns on the paperwork although really later in life your brains gonna work better and they’re going to rely on your 15 year self.
While these interviewees expressed dissatisfaction with the available job prospects, other people spoke in more positive terms: describing the availability of jobs and the availability of training opportunities and resources such as ‘job shops’ to help people find employment.
Sue asked: What do you think about education, training and job opportunities for people living locally?
“I think there is jobs, there is jobs out there. The colleges are quite good around here. My son goes to a specific college just for plumbing. You know education wise they do try I think. ”
The Three Travellers Inn, 2017