Luton in 2024
Progress report
Where were you on 27th May? Wardown Park? Behind the sofa? Or part of the orange sea at Wembley Stadium as Luton completed the greatest fairytale in football, securing their place in the Premier League? We’ll never forget that day, and the celebrations that followed, nor the buzz as top-flight football returned to Luton, something our whole town can be proud of.
The football club’s story reminds us how much can change in a short period of time. Less than a decade ago, Luton looked like a club with no future, languishing in the non-league pyramid, playing Alfreton rather than Arsenal. And yet look at them now, welcoming Mo Salah and Erling Haaland to Kenilworth Road. Just because it’s a long way off, it doesn’t mean you can’t make it. Or, as anyone walking into Luton from the train station will tell you: if you can dream it, you can do it.
Maybe the reason Luton’s Town’s promotion resonated so strongly within our community is that it echoes the journey of our town as a whole. Reading this report reminds us of two things:
Our vision of creating a town where no one has to live in poverty is wildly ambitious - but all the best visions are – the report paints a helpful picture of our starting point when it comes to poverty and health inequalities and it is these headline measures that we will use as our baselines when it comes to measuring our town’s success towards 2040;
We’re already beginning to see the first small victories that will lead us where we want to go particularly in our education and learning across the town, such as the huge drop in working-age adults without qualifications, the high percentage of pupils attending good or outstanding schools and the town’s below-average NEET figures.
The story of Luton Town reminds us that there’s no such thing as overnight success, it’s a series of hard-fought, small victories, matched with long-term commitment that gets you where you want to be. Luton is on the same path towards our 2040 vision.
The Luton 2040 progress report shows our town’s progress towards the Luton 2040 vision of a healthy, fair and sustainable town where everyone can thrive and no one has to live in poverty. The report tracks progress against our overarching aim of creating a town free of poverty.
The report concludes with reflections and recommendations from the town’s leaders and residents, as well as the joint governing board of Luton 2040.
You can download the report here.
Centre for Cities Report
The 2024 Centre for Cities report highlighted both the strengths of Luton, and the challenges facing the town…
- Luton has the highest net new job creation in British cities and large town 2010-2022, even ahead of London
- Luton in the bottom 10 for percentage change of children living in absolute poverty (2014-2021)
- Interestingly though, unlike most of the rest of the country, fewer children in Luton are in relative poverty from working households than in 2014
- Luton has the second highest business start-up rate in the country
- Luton has the 5th highest proportion of private sector jobs
- Luton has the third highest unemployment benefit claimant count rate
- Luton has the third fastest broadband in the country
- Luton has the third lowest emissions per capita in the country
Social progress index
Luton’s Social Progress Index seeks to measure poverty within the town independently of economic factors and is composed of three dimensions: basic human needs (such as nutrition, water and housing); foundations of wellbeing (such as access to information and communication, and environmental quality); and opportunity (such as person rights, and inclusiveness).
Index scores are scaled 0-100 on ward level, with 100 being the highest score in terms of social progress. In the map above, the scale runs from light to dark in which the darkest shade represents the strongest performing ward.
This map shows SPI across Luton, showing the strongest performing wards in the North, North East and East of the town, with areas that are struggling predominantly in the South and West of the town. The SPI also shows strong correlation with income – areas with higher income such as Bramingham and Barnfield have better social outcomes. Areas of the town habited by newer communities, often settling around the centre of the town, show lower social progress.
Minimum Income Standard
The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) is our key measure for tracking poverty within Luton. This model estimates that 8.9% of Luton households live in destitution – homes that are severely financially stretched and struggle to afford essentials. Their outgoings significantly outweigh their low incomes, and debt may be a major worry, with physical and mental health maybe suffering as a consequence – that’s 20,000 people who are unable to afford basic living essentials. Beyond that, a further 11.8% of households, a further 27,000 residents, are struggling to pay for some basic essentials.
These figures have risen since the 2022 data, which saw 7.2% below the destitution line and 11.4% struggling for some basic essentials. While this data isn’t comparable like-for-like to the national picture, we can see from data such as the 37% rise in the distribution of emergency food parcels nationally that this is not specifically a Luton problem. We also not that households in destitution nationally rose by almost 250% between 2017 and 2022.
The MIS also shows that more than half of the town’s households (50.1%) are below the financial quality of life line – preventing them fully participating socially and culturally within society.
