Barking and Dagenham is undergoing change - much of it conflicting. The media regularly reports on it, residents feel it, some fear it, while the Office for National Statistics data and other surveys confirm it. Even if you have never stepped foot in our borough, you will probably already have a picture of this largely neglected part of east London from the film Made in Dagenham, the Ford plant which dominated industry in this borough from the late 1920s and throughout much of the 20th century or, more recently, from the BNP who briefly managed a foothold on the council, winning 12 out of 51 seats in 2006. Like all stereotypes, the reality of the area is somewhat different from this simplistic portrait and it is shifting at an exponential rate. It is true we are currently the 12th most deprived local authority area in the country and the third in London. Our housing is the cheapest in the capital and our economic base is poor, since the decline in both the Ford plant and Sanofi, the global pharmaceutical company which owned an 108-acre base here until 2013.
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