Understanding Poverty in Place: Northumberland Park
Understanding Poverty in Place: Northumberland Park
Watch our webinar discussing the results with residents involved in the research
The Challenge
In the UK, 4.5 million children live in poverty. Despite decades of data and interventions, the problem persists. This project asked why. Northumberland Park, one of England’s most deprived areas where 27% of children live in poverty, provided testing ground for our data democracy approach: what happens when those with direct lived experience lead the interpretation of data about their own lives?
Our Approach
Between May and October 2025, we worked with 17 residents of Northumberland Park through five workshops, focusing primarily on younger residents aged 16-30. Using our Data Democracy method, participants didn’t just share their experiences - they interrogated statistics, identified patterns the data alone would never reveal, and guided our analysis of poverty affecting children in their area.
We combined rigorous quantitative analysis of deprivation data, housing costs, employment patterns and economic development with collective sense-making. Participants examined geospatial data showing Haringey’s stark east-west divide, explored how Tottenham Hotspur Stadium’s development impacted the local economy, and connected their lived experience to structural patterns of inequality.
What We Found
The Wrong Side of the Tracks - Spatial Inequality and Invisibility
Northumberland Park sits in a borough divided by wealth. In east Haringey, up to 1 in 3 children live in poverty; in the west, as low as 1 in 33 - a tenfold difference. Residents described crossing this divide as entering “a simulation,” two incompatible worlds separated by wealth, infrastructure and opportunity. When data is aggregated at borough level, Northumberland Park’s deprivation becomes statistically invisible.
More than Skin Deep - Race, Class and Solidarity
We expected race to be the primary lens through which participants understood poverty. Instead, within Northumberland Park itself, class emerged as the dominant identification. Shared material conditions - social housing, neglected infrastructure, limited opportunities - create solidarity that crosses ethnic lines. One participant described a “vibration” within the area that unites more than ethnicity divides. Yet the geography itself remains fundamentally shaped by structural racism.
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Extractive Regeneration
Northumberland Park sits beside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The stadium exemplifies extractive regeneration. Haringey Council allowed the club to renege on planning obligations including social housing provision and local employment support, while relaxing event regulations. Economic analysis shows most growth in Gross Value Added is attributable to the club itself - local businesses have seen little benefit. Residents described food banks operating during Beyoncé concerts, metres from where thousands pay premium prices.
Institutional Barriers to Systemic Change New Indices of Deprivation data, released during this project, quantified what residents already knew: things have gotten worse. Northumberland Park dropped from 485th to 41st most deprived in England for Income Deprivation Affecting Children since 2019. Almost all other measures of deprivation also worsened - despite the multi-million-pound Tottenham Hotspur Stadium development next door. Haringey Council has the data but fails to act. Residents feel institutions make decisions affecting their lives without genuine engagement or accountability.
What Must Happen Now
Residents developed clear recommendations, questions and provocations through their analysis. Here are the headlines:
Move Beyond Child-Focused Narratives
Children don’t experience poverty separately from their families. Interventions must support entire families - addressing parents’ employment, housing, mental health and community connection is the foundation for addressing poverty affecting children.
Create a Northumberland Park Endowment Fund
A fund capitalised by those who profit from the area could provide sustained, community-controlled resources. Tottenham Hotspur could donate 0.1% of annual revenue (over £500,000 in 2024), matched by philanthropic funders. Haringey Council could ringfence a percentage of business rates from the area. The question isn’t whether this is possible, but whether those with power are willing to invest in Northumberland Park’s future.
Invest in People, Not Just Projects
Money flowing into Northumberland Park funds time-limited projects rather than building community capacity. Residents propose a model that prioritises building people up, creating space for resource-sharing and knowledge circulation that becomes self-sustaining.
Haringey Council Must Take Responsibility
The council has let down the people of Northumberland Park. The stadium development represented the most significant missed opportunity in recent memory to improve residents’ lives. The question is what the council will do differently over the next five years.
Impact
This research demonstrates that affected communities are expert interpreters capable of sophisticated analysis. Residents identified solutions that emerge from lived experience and rigorous engagement with data - recommendations that deserve serious consideration precisely because of where they come from.
Over 400 people signed up for our webinar and have received the final report. Our aim now is to secure resources for NLPC and the residents of Northumberland Park to pursue the change they require. We received a lot of positive feedback about this work but want to ensure that it turns into positive action.
We know that the persistence of poverty affecting children in places like Northumberland Park is not inevitable. It’s the result of specific decisions by specific institutions at specific moments. Different decisions remain possible. This report exists to make those decisions harder to avoid.