Oldham’s ethnic communities have the third worst integration rate in England and Wales

Research by think-tank “Policy Exchange” shows that Oldham has the third worst ethnic social integration rates in England and Wales behind Boston and Wisbech. The Policy Exchange related integrationhub website states “Visible minority concentration is mostly in London, the Midlands, or the mill towns (e.g. Tower Hamlets, Oldham, Bradford, Burnley, Birmingham, and Leicester). The index of dissimilarity shows that at local authority level (district and unitary), the top five areas where ethnic minorities are the most segregated from the White British are Oldham, Bradford, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, and Pendle. Within the top five segregated areas the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis tend to have the highest spatial segregation from White British. For instance, in Oldham the index of dissimilarity for Pakistanis is 0.79 and for Bangladeshis it is 0.75. This compares with 0.52 for Indians and 0.46 for Black Africans. In 2011, 4.1 million non-white ethnic minority individuals or 41 per cent of the minority population lived in wards that were less than 50 per cent white, compared with roughly 1 million or 25 per cent who did so in 2001.”