Queensway Amongst Wales’ Most Deprived Areas

Queensway has been named as the ninth most deprived area in Wales according to Welsh Government figures.

According to the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation for 2011 the “Queensway 1” district which comprises approximately half of the Queensway area on Wrexham’s Caia Park estate is the ninth most deprived area in the country.

The index, which was last published in 2008, splits Wales into 1,896 different areas that each have a population of approximately 1,500 people.

It was created as a tool to identify and understand deprivation in Wales and ranks areas against eight different deprivation indicators including: percentage of population in receipt of income related benefits, percentage of working age population in receipt of employment related
benefits, proximity to services such as schools and shops and crime and health rates.

However, the results are not entirely bad news for Queensway which has fallen seven places in the rankings compared to 2008, when it was named as the second most deprived area in the country.

A number of initiatives have been launched in Caia Park to help members of the community find employment in recent years, including the Caia Park Partnership which has helped volunteers set up several social enterprises and find jobs. The Welsh Government funded Caia Park Communities First also carries out regeneration and community development work on the estate.

Plans to turn part of Caia Park into an urban woodland have also been given the go ahead by Wrexham Council and will see 7,000 trees planted in Caia Park as part of the Welsh Assembly’s Plant scheme.

The full statistics from the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation can be found via the following link.