I can only assume either that the person who wrote the documents did not understand the Oxford University study, or that they had deliberately misinterpreted it. In fact, they had probably managed to do both!

The study shows that Hill ward is the fourth most 'deprived' district in the whole country on the basis of the criteria and methodology employed. But I would have thought it self-evident that this area is a long way from being the fourth worst in the country (or even in the county) if 'deprivation' is given its everyday meaning; the study must either have fundamental flaws in its methodology, or more likely the 'deprivation' described is not what would normally be meant by that term.

Moreover, the local Conservatives do not seem to have realised that if the study meant what they appear to have thought it meant, almost all of England would be less deprived than Hill ward; and if that was the case the country would be in a positively utopian condition.
Far from representing a damning criticism of the Government, the study would mean that the Government had been amazingly successful in almost completely abolishing deprivation in every part of the country.

In fact, of course, the study means nothing of the sort. It uses a particular methodology which if applied (for example) to two areas within Hill ward would indicate that Borough Hill was more deprived than Southbrook. Whereas Southbrook has three schools, a SureStart Centre, several children's play areas, a community centre, a church, and a number of shops, Borough Hill has none of these amenities and is also further from the nearest supermarket and GP practice.
On the basis of the criteria used in the study, Borough Hill would be in a parlous state indeed. But of course nobody would describe Borough Hill as more 'deprived' than Southbrook, or indeed 'deprived' at all.

I now look forward to the majority party on the DDC explaining why the fact that we appear to have the dirtiest streets in the East Midlands is all the fault of the national Government! And by the way, is the Tim Boswell who is now the new patron of the local SureStart organisation the same person as the Shadow Minister in 1998 when the Tories dismissed the move (to establish SureStart) as "another classic example of Labour's nanny state instincts"?
Jim Brant
Sunningdale Drive
Daventry