Affluence nestles next to deprivation across our area, the latest Index of Multiple Deprivation reveals.

The stark contrast makes tackling the areas of need more difficult, according to Farnham and Bordon MP Greg Stafford.

Farnham contains Waverley’s second-most deprived area, Sandy Hill, just a short walk from Waverley’s least deprived.

Meanwhile, across town, The Bourne scores highly but, perhaps unexpectedly, not as highly as parts of Hale and Heath End, its score lowered by one of the seven ‘domains’ on which the index is based.

These scores put each area in a 10 percent bracket – or decile, with 10 the highest – and are based on income; employment; education; health; crime; living environment; and barriers to housing and services. It is these last barriers which keep The Bourne off the top spot.

The index divides England into 33,755 Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs), neighbourhoods with an average population of around 1,600. Although the ranking for Sandy Hill may seem bleak, the area is on the way up when compared with the 2019 index and it rose more than 3,000 places up the table to 12,552.

The Haslemere area remains relatively prosperous with fewer contrasts, though the Woolmer Hill and Wey Hill neighbourhoods have seen their income drop from the sixth to fifth deciles in the past six years.

East Hampshire also contains the most and least deprived neighbourhoods. The least is in Petersfield, from Tor Way to Penns Place, north of Heath Road. However, this is not far from the Borough Road/Grange Road area which is in the fourth decile. Here there is more social housing than on average and a concentration of retired people which affects both income and health.

The most deprived is in Alton’s Pound Gate/Nursery Road area where educational outcomes put it in the bottom ten per cent in England. Again, there is a contrast between this and neighbouring LSOAs which include one east of Odiham Road to just beyond Wooteys Way which is in the top decile overall.

In Bordon, the Apollo Drive neighbourhood is in the fourth decile with some of the lowest educational outcomes in England. It abuts a ninth-decile LSOA but it is difficult to explain such a discrepancy. There is social housing in the latter but so is there in areas which score relatively highly such as Chalet Hill.

Farnham and Bordon MP Greg Stafford said the statistics confirmed what he already knew.

“We have some really affluent areas but also some real areas of poverty and they are side by side,” he said.

“In some ways having that stark difference is even more difficult to deal with than if the differences weren’t so great.

I was really disappointed we didn’t get a single penny from the government’s Pride of Place scheme. That shows a real lack of understanding from the government about the challenges we have here. We need proper investment to help and encourage people.”