We visit Birmingham neighbourhood with the lowest life expectancy

It’s the inner-city suburb with the lowest life expectancy rate across the whole of Birmingham. We’re in Nechells, an area surrounded by industrial sites and some of the busiest roadways – or artery routes – in and out of the city. Air quality here is said to be a key factor behind poor health amongst residents with the biggest killer, according to health officials, both heart and lung disease. Infant mortality is also incredibly high while, according to locals, the air is that bad you can taste it.

Nechells, though, remains a proud and an incredibly diverse community. It has a large African and Somali population, while many of the British and Irish residents born and raised in this part of Birmingham have remained. “I’m born and bred in Nechells and I’m still here now,” proud resident Julie Brunton-Douglas said. “It’s not a bad place at all. Yes, people have passed and people have moved out of the area but we still have some good people here; people say it’s a s*** hole and others say it’s gone downhill, but look around at other areas, there is good and bad there. I’m sick of people slagging Nechells off just because they’ve moved out of the area.”

Stephen McNally agreed, and said: “We grew up in Stanley Road and absolutely loved Nechells back in the day – had loads of amazing memories and friends. I’ve lived in Nechells for 25 years and would never change a thing.”

Annette Camilleri also commented: “100 percent agree, had a very happy childhood living in Nechells.”

However, according to data from Health Equals, residents in Nechells are predicted to have the shortest of life spans in the Second City. Figures reveal that men and women, on average, have a life expectancy of just 76. It’s as high as 84 in Sutton Coldfield.

Nechells, meanwhile, remains one of the poorest areas in the country with more than 52 percent of the 16,000 residents living in poverty. Of the 6,000 properties here, two-thirds are social housing while the vast majority of large families live in two-bed properties.

Speaking to Nechells’ devoted councillor Lee Marsham on a walk around Bloomsbury Park, he stated how damp, mould and living conditions continue to dominate his casework due to the amount of people living in two-bedroom homes that aren’t fit for purpose.

“Housing is a very important part of people’s lives,” Cllr Marsham commented. “We need more homes to be built across the city and we need to make our homes warmer, greener, safer. That keeps people’s energy bills lower and it will keep people healthier.”

And while housing remains an issue across the whole of the city, here in Nechells you just couldn’t get away from the air pollution. The ward is sandwiched between the ever-busy Aston Expressway, Heartlands Parkway and the M6. You’ve got a scrapyard down the road as well as the hundreds of vans and lorries coming in and out the industrial units.

“We’re very keen in Nechells to see what the effects of air quality are,” outlined Cllr Marsham. “At the top of Nechells we’ve got the Spaghetti Junction and, at the bottom end, we’ve got the Inner Ring Road. We’ve put in air quality monitors at those locations to see the impact of that. We know that poor air quality results in poor health qualities so we’re keen to see what the results show in order to make changes to people’s lives.”

On Nechells itself, though, it’s clear that it has a lot going for it. The streets are clean while crime levels are nowhere near as high as areas such as Lozells, Newtown or nearby Saltley.

Cllr Marsham added: “Nechells is a fantastic community where people take pride in where they live because they know their neighbours and they help each other out. People from all over the world have come to Nechells and have based themselves here for a new life and they support each other.

There are some great community hubs that do some great things, especially with our young people. But we’re working with partners to tackle the things we know about, such as working with the NHS, the council and GPs to provide free health checks for those between 40 and 75.

It’s about breaking down barriers to bring about change, to improve employability which will improve people’s lives. We also need to see improvements to how people go about their lives.

“But for those that don’t know Nechells, it’s a great place where there’s so much diversity. The highest number of young people in the city live in Nechells and the talent here is incredible and I have no doubt that it may be poor in some ways but it’s rich in talent and we just need to tap into that and people will thrive.”