The wealth gap on your doorstep: Study reveals Britain's most economically divided neighbourhoods where rich and poor live 'cheek by jowl'

Study based on income, savings, investments and property values

Neighbouring streets in St Albans had the biggest wealth disparity

Britain's most economically divided neighbourhoods have been revealed in a wide-ranging survey of the country's wealth gap.



A study by data company CACI found streets where wealthy families in £1m homes live 'cheek by jowl' with some of the most deprived households in the country.

Neighbouring streets in St Albans in Hertfordshire, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Liverpool are revealed as among the areas with the biggest wealth disparity.

Economically divided neighbourhood: Talbot Road, west London

Affluent: Courtnell Street, which is round the corner from Talbot Road



The analysis was based on factors such as income, savings, investments and property values.



Patrick Tate of CACI, which categorises every household into one of 62 demographic types, told The Sunday Times : 'Our analysis shows the biggest divides are within communities rather than across the oft-quoted north-south divide.

'Britain is most divided at a local level and these social, health and financial disparities will only increase.'

One of the sharpest income gaps in the CACI survey was between Kirkstead Walk and Penley Crescent in Liverpool.

Only 50 yards apart as the crow flies, they are separated by a railway line so it is a two-mile trip between them.

The average income in Kirkstead Walk is £66,000 and people living there are three times more likely than the national average to be paying higher-rate tax.

1. St Albans - Flora Grove and Shirley Road

2. Birmingham - Carpenter Road and Ashley Close

3. Edinburgh - House O'Hill Row and Wester Drylaw Drive

4. Merseyside - Kirkstead Walk and Penley Crescent

5. Bedford - Tydeman Close and Browney Path

6. Nottingham - Buntings Lane and Fleming Drive

7. North London - Prince Arthur Road and Fitzjohns Avenue

8. Middlesbrough - West Dyke Road and Cropton Road

9. West London - Courtnell Street and Talbot Road 10. Wakefield - Briarwood Close and Mountbatten Crescent



Across the railway line in Penley Crescent, however, the average income is just £20,200 — a difference of 227 per cent, The Sunday Times reported.



According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, inequality is back at levels last seen in the mid-1990s.

'The immediate effect of the most recent recession was to reduce inequality in 2010-11 because benefits stayed flat while wages fell, but as tax and benefit reforms come in over the next few years you would expect to see inequality increase again,' said Luke Sibieta of the IFS.

Research suggests extreme wealth disparity can have a negative impact on health and wellbeing.

A study by York University found that while people in wealthier neighbourhoods generally had better health, this was not true for poor mothers living in affluent areas.