Chiltern Councillor Update Economic Profile of Asheridge Vale & Lowndes Ward
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Chiltern Councillor Update Economic Profile of Asheridge Vale & Lowndes Ward April 2014 Produced by Buckinghamshire Business First’s research department P a g e | 2 1.0 Introduction Asheridge Vale & Lowndes is home to 4,850 people and provides 1,000 jobs in 82 businesses. Of these businesses, 33 (40.2 per cent) are Buckinghamshire Business First members. There were 3,438 employed people aged 16-74 living in Ash ridge Vale & Lowndes ward at the 2011 Census, 256 more than the 3,182 recorded in 2001. Over that period the working age population rose 195 to 2,996 while the total population rose 351 to 4,850. The number of households rose by 207 (12.1 per cent) to 1,919. This is the highest percentage increase out of all wards in Chiltern. Based on the increase in number of households, the ward ranks 16th out of all wards in Buckinghamshire. The largest companies in Asheridge Vale & Lowndes include: Axwell Wireless; Broadway Bowls Club; Chesham Park Community College; Survex Ltd; Draycast Foundries Ltd; Elmtree Country First School; and Martec Europe Ltd. There are 63 Asheridge Vale & Lowndes, representing 2.2 per cent of working age residents, including 30 claimants aged 25-49 and 15 who have been claiming for more than twelve months. Superfast broadband is expected to be available to 98 per cent of premises in the Asheridge Vale & Lowndes ward by March 2016 with commercial providers responsible for the full 98 per cent. The Connected Counties project, run by BBF, will deliver nothing to this particular ward due to the high proportion of fibre availability through commercial providers. BBF is seeking to deliver an extended superfast footprint via additional funding, adaptation of downstream technology and contract claw-back mechanism. At the time of the 2001 Censusi, of the 2,220 employed residents, 466 people lived and worked in the ward, with the most common destinations by local authority district being: Chiltern (1,292, 58.2) Wycombe (111, 5.0) Dacorum (91, 4.1) Hillingdon (60, 2.7) Westminster, City of (59, 2.7) Aylesbury Vale (50, 2.3) South Buckinghamshire (48, 2.2) P a g e | 3 2.0 Industrial structure There are 82 businesses located in Asheridge Vale & Lowndes employing 1,000 people. Of these businesses, 60 are micro businesses, employing fewer than 10 people. Asheridge Vale & Lowndes is over represented in Manufacturing which accounts for 24.9 per cent of employment. This ranks the ward 803rd out of all wards for employment in the sector. Further over-representation can be identified in wholesale and construction which each account for 9.6 per cent of employment and are ranked 868th and 1,891st out of all wards respectively. Ash ridge Vale & Lowndes is also over-represented in Education which accounts for 18.6 per cent of employment ranking the ward 1,941st out of all wards for employment in the sector. Chart 1: Industrial Structure Index, 2012 (GB=100) Manufacturing Construction Motor trades Wholesale Retail Transport & storage Accommodation & food services Information & communication Financial & insurance Property Professional, scientific & technical Business administration & support services Education Health Arts, entertainment, recreation & other services 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 Source: BRES, ONS, 2013 Asheridge Vale & Lowndes is under-represented in a number of sectors including accommodation, financial and property. Property employs only 0.2 per cent, this is surprising as the sector usually employs a significantly higher proportion. The ward is ranked 6,954th out of all wards for employment in the sector. P a g e | 4 2.1 The Industrial Strategy and the Plan for Growth Plan for Growth and the Industrial Strategy set out policies to realise this objective and to rebalance the economy, which include focusing on sectors expected to deliver strong growth. Chiltern -represented in these sectors, particularly aerospace, the information economy and professional and business services. While Asheridge Vale & Lowndes provides jobs in these sectors, the industrial strategy sector where the ward delivers the highest share of national employment is education which accounts for 18.6 per cent of employment, ranking Ash ridge Vale & Lowndes at 2,000th among English wards. The proportions of jobs in Ash ridge Vale & Lowndes in Industrial Strategy sectors are presented in Table 1. Table 1: Employment in selected industrial strategy sectors, 2012 Education Professionaland BusinessServices Construction Information Economy Chiltern 12.7 15.2 5.2 4.8 Buckinghamshire 9.3 15.0 5.5 4.4 England 4.6 12.9 4.6 3.0 Amersham Town 18.6 8.6 8.9 1.5 Source: BRES, ONS, 2013 At 8.9 per cent, the proportion of Asheridge Vale & Lowndes’ jobs in the construction sector is the 1,852nd highest of all wards in England, the proportion is below that of both the country level and the district level. 3.0 Labour market At 66.3 per cent of 16-74 year olds, Asheridge Vale & Lowndes’ employment rate is in the second highest quartile of the country. Asheridge Vale & Lowndes has a proportion of 33.9 per cent of its residents qualified to degree level or higher. Furthermore, 49.6 per cent work in managerial, professional or technical occupations. In Chiltern the wards most similar to Asheridge Vale & Lowndes are Holmer Green, St Prestwood & Heath End with eight of the other 24 wards among the top thousand closest matches. The least similar ward in the district is Ridgeway, the only ward in Chiltern to rank lower than the 4,000th closest match. P a g e | 5 Table 2: Asheridge Vale & Lowndes’ labour market performance & nearest neighbours, 2011 Self-employed 1-3 SOCs NVQ4+ age Working Employmentrate Ward Name Home from Work Asheridge Vale and Lowndes 4.7 12.4 49.6 33.9 61.8 66.3 Holmer Green 6.1 12.5 48.9 31.8 59.8 66.0 St Mary's and Waterside 5.0 13.3 47.2 30.5 63.2 68.8 Prestwood and Heath End 7.1 14.6 50.3 37.0 60.3 67.2 Amersham-on-the-Hill 5.6 11.6 55.0 40.5 59.2 67.9 Source: Census, 2011 Asheridge Vale & Lowndes has a fairly high level of those who work from home and are self-employed. Furthermore, as stated previously, the ward has a high level of those educated to degree level or higher and those working in managerial, professional and technical roles ranking in the top quartile for the latter. Asheridge Vale & Lowndes looks to have a high employment rate but a relatively low level of working age residents. Chart 2: Asheridge Vale & Lowndes’ labour market performance, 2011 Work from Home 100 75 Employment rate 50 Self-employed 25 0 Working age SOCs 1-3 NVQ4+ Source: Census, 2011 P a g e | 6 4.0 Occupational Structure Asheridge Vale & Lowndes’ occupational structure is skewed towards the higher skilled and better remunerated occupations, with 49.6 per cent of working residents employed in managerial, professional and technical occupations, ranking in the top quartile nationally for both managerial and technical occupations. In contrast Asheridge Vale & Lowndes ranks in the bottom quartile for on occupation, with only 9.0 per cent of working residents employed in skilled trades occupations. Chart 3: Asheridge Vale & Lowndes comparative occupational, 2011 1. Managers, directors and senior officials 100 9. Elementary occupations 2. Professional occupations 75 50 8. Process plant and machine 25 3. Associate professional and operatives technical occupations 0 7. Sales and customer service 4. Administrative and secretarial occupations occupations 6. Caring, leisure and other 5. Skilled trades occupations service occupations Source: Census, ONS, 2011 5.0 Deprivation Buckinghamshire has the lowest level of economic deprivation of any Local Enterprise Partnership, with Chiltern having the 13th lowest economic deprivation of all 326 local authority districts in England, behind South Bucks (10th) but ahead of Aylesbury (37th) and Wycombe (69th). Chart 4 demonstrates the concentration of Chiltern least deprived in England with 12 of the 25 wards featuring among the least deprived 10 per cent of all wards in England and only three ranking among the most deprived half of English wards, a stark contrast to the London Borough of Newham where no ward ranks above halfway, highlighting the challenge Chiltern faces to attract resources to tackle deprivation. P a g e | 7 Asheridge Vale & Lowndes has the 3,218th lowest economic deprivation of the 7,707 wards in England and the fourth most economically deprived of the 25 Chiltern wards. Asheridge Vale & Lowndes is the 88th least economically deprived among the 108 ward in Buckinghamshire. The position of Chiltern ds in England is shown in below, with Asheridge Vale & Lowndes the only ward in Chilterns fifth least deprived decile. Chart 4: Relative economic deprivation of Chiltern wards by English decile, 2009 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Most Least deprived deprived Source: DCLG, 2012 Asheridge Vale & Lowndes ranks 5,214th out of all wards in England based on the Index of Multiple Deprivationii; this makes it among the least deprived decile in England, well below Chiltern 6532nd, demonstrating that the ward is more deprived than the district as a whole. P a g e | 8 Chart 5: Comparative deprivation by IMD domain in Asheridge Vale & Lowndes IMD 100.0 Living environment 75.0 Income 50.0 25.0 Crime 0.0 Employment Housing Health Education Source: DCLG, 2010 The wards in Chiltern most closely matching Asheridge Vale & Lowndes’ deprivation profile are presented in Table 3. Nationally, the closest matches are Bushey St James Stortford Central (East Hertfordshire) while Amersham-on-the-Hill and Newtown are the most similar in Chiltern ranking as the 38th and 62nd most similar of all English wards.