Growing east-west downturn divide

30 January 2012 Last updated at 06:43 GMT By Nick Servini BBC Wales business correspondent The worst performing areas were the former mining communities of the south Wales valleys New research suggests there is a growing east-west split in Wales when it comes to coping with the economic downturn and cuts in the public sector.

A study commissioned by BBC Wales has found there has been some significant falls in the resilience of businesses in west and north-west Wales.

The research also showed the worst performing areas were the former mining communities of the south Wales valleys.

Overall, the most resilient county was Monmouthshire.

It was followed by the Vale of Glamorgan and Flintshire, while the bottom three were Neath Port Talbot, Merthyr Tydfil and Blaenau Gwent.

The data provides a snapshot of how Wales is coping with the downturn and the UK government's austerity measures.

The research by Experian measured the resilience of each Welsh county in four different ways: business, community, people and place.

It did the same research two years ago, offering a point of comparison.

PDF download Resilience in Wales[79KB]

The resilience of businesses has been measured on factors such as the number of business insolvencies, exports and companies in strong sectors.

In the past two years, Anglesey has fallen 11 places, Gwynedd dropped 10 places, Pembrokeshire eight and Ceredigion six.

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1. Monmouthshire

2. Vale of Glamorgan

3. Flintshire

4. Powys

5. Cardiff

6. Ceredigion

7. Carmarthenshire

8. Conwy

9. Newport

10. Bridgend

11. Wrexham

12. Pembrokeshire

13. Gwynedd

14. Swansea

15. Rhondda Cynon Taf

16. Denbighshire

17. Anglesey

18. Torfaen

19. Caerphilly

20. Neath Port Talbot

21. Merthyr Tydfil

22. Blaenau Gwent

Source: Experian

The drop in Anglesey was caused largely by a dramatic rise in insolvencies.

In contrast, there were gains for some of the eastern counties such as Flintshire and Wrexham.

There was a big rise at the Vale of Glamorgan which benefited from having high-growth high-tech sectors.

Community was measured with factors such as life expectancy and social cohesion.

There was a clear town-versus-country split in this category with rural counties like Powys, Ceredigion and Monmouthshire at the top and urban areas at the bottom, including Cardiff.

People was measured by looking at skills levels and the proportion of managers in an area.

Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan came out on top, but there was a big jump for Powys, which has seen a shift towards higher skilled occupations.

Blaenau Gwent was the least resilient in this category. Despite having a large working age population, the study found there were very few residents with high-level qualifications.

GCSE results, crime rates and the value of office space were used to measure places and, again, the Vale of Glamorgan came out on top in Wales, with Flintshire and Ceredigion bottom.

Newport saw the biggest shift in the rankings because of strong GCSE results.

Overall, many of the trends are the same as two years ago, particularly at the bottom of the tables which were once again dominated by the former industrial communities in the south Wales valleys.