Decades of Neglect
Hearing his Baird Ward is ranked the seventh most deprived neighbourhood in England is upsetting, says Hastings Green Councillor YUNIS SMITH, but confirms what residents have lived with for years
Baird has been left behind for far too long. Decades of underinvestment have allowed the wealth and health gap to grow into a genuine chasm, a stark divide between the haves and have-nots, often just streets apart.
The struggles in Baird are deep-rooted and systemic. Housing is one of the clearest examples: too many families are living with damp, mould, overcrowding, and slow responses to basic repairs. These conditions have a direct impact on health, wellbeing, and opportunity. Combine this with low incomes, insecure work, rising rents and bills, and the impact on everyday life becomes unavoidable. We’re also seeing the consequences of years of lost youth services and community spaces: young people have fewer places to go, fewer structured activities, and fewer chances to thrive.
If we are serious about reversing decades of neglect, we need solutions that match the scale of the problem. That means properly resourcing local areas like Baird, not asking them to do more with less. We need accountability from housing providers, long-term investment in insulation and repairs, and support for community-led spaces where residents can connect, grow, and build local pride.
But it’s impossible to ignore that local action alone can’t close a gap created by decades of national policy failure. A genuine wealth tax, even at modest levels, could raise tens of billions a year from the top richest households, creating a national funding stream for communities like Baird that have been left behind. Likewise, a regulated and legal framework for drugs, taxed similarly to alcohol or tobacco, could generate billions in revenue while removing the profit model from county lines gangs and reducing harm through proper support.
That money could be reinvested into addiction services, mental health care, youth work, and community-building, tackling the root causes rather than criminalising the symptoms. We also need to acknowledge how national policies like the two-child benefitcap are actively pushing families in places like Baird deeper into poverty.
Yet despite all these political choices lining up to hold them back, the community in Baird is one of the most resilient, compassionate, and determined groups of people I have ever had the privilege to represent.
Baird doesn’t need pity. It needs partnership, investment, and structural change.
What it already has, in abundance, is heart. A determination to push through hardship. A culture of looking after one another. A belief that things can be better and a willingness to fight for that. This resilience is not just admirable: it is powerful. It shows what Baird could achieve with the right support. What the community has managed to build with limited resources is extraordinary; imagine what could be achieved with proper investment, functioning services, and policies that recognise and value this strength.
The resilience of this community is not a footnote. It is the foundation on which real change can be built.
Deprivation Headlines
- Income Deprivation: roughly one in three are classed as income deprived.
- Employment Deprivation: around one in five working-age adults experience unemployment or work-limiting hardship.
- Health Deprivation & Disability: health outcomes remain significantly worse than the national average.
- Crime: higher than average levels of recorded crime.
- Barriers to Housing & Services: poor housing access, affordability, and service availability remain major issues here.
- Living Environment: reflects poor local housing quality, fuel poverty and environmental challenges.
- Child Poverty: nearly half of local children live in income-deprived households.
- Older people’s Deprivation: around one in four – 26% – of older residents experiences financial hardship.
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