Sitting immediately to the northeast of Leicester city centre, St Matthew’s is an inner-city area separated from the centre by the A594 dual-carriageway ring road. The area is bounded to the west by Belgrave Gate, which runs between the city centre and the district of Belgrave, to the north by Dysart Way, and to the east by the Humberstone Road (A47) towards Highfields. Locally, St Matthew’s is known by several informal names, including ‘Mashtown’, ‘Little Somalia’, and ‘Hell City’.
History and Housing
Before redevelopment, the area consisted largely of small factories and slum housing, much of it back-to-back terraces. During the 1950s, this was cleared and replaced with council housing, and the majority of properties in St Matthew’s remain local authority-owned today. The ring road that was built around Leicester’s city centre left St Matthew’s effectively cut off, with no adjacent residential areas connecting it to neighbouring communities. This isolation is a defining physical characteristic of the area.
Community and Demographics
St Matthew’s has a large and varied immigrant-background population. Residents trace their roots to Turkey, Iraq, Somalia, Morocco, Tanzania (predominantly Zanzibaris), Pakistan, Syria, and Sudan. There is a significant Muslim community in the area, with several mosques present. Yours Supermarket, a multi-ethnic grocery store, serves the local population. According to the 2007 Indices of Deprivation, St Matthew’s was measured as the most income-deprived neighbourhood in England, and it remains statistically the most deprived neighbourhood within Leicester.