About Lewisham

Lewisham is the second largest inner London borough and is home to approximately 255,000 people set to grow by 35,000 by 2026. Lewisham has a slightly younger age profile than the rest of the UK. Children and young people aged 0-19 years make up 24.5% of our residents, compared to 22.4% for inner London and 24.4% nationally. Lewisham has 35,800 pupils within its 91 schools.

Lewisham has 67 primary schools, 2 nursery schools, 6 special schools, 1 Pupil Referral Unit, 12 secondary schools and 2 all through schools covering primary and secondary age ranges (including 3 Academies) Additional post 16 provision includes 1 sixth form college and 1 FE college.

Whilst 40% of our residents are from black and minority ethnic background this rises to 72% within our school population, where over 170 different languages are spoken by our pupils, and 65 per cent of the 15,000 learners at Lewisham College are of black and minority ethnic origin. Lewisham is the 15th most ethnically diverse local authority in England. 34,000 residents are of black-Caribbean origin, nearly 28,000 residents are of black-African origin and an ever growing proportion of residents are of dual heritage or mixed race.

Recent evidence suggests that the recession has slowed the rate of residential mobility, through a sharp slowdown in private housing sales – this has impacted on the overall rate of "population churn" in Lewisham. Lewisham is the third largest inner London borough in terms of population. The profile of our population is relatively young, with one in four being under 19 years of age.

One of the distinctive features of Lewisham's social profile is the number of lone parent families locally. Across England as a whole just 7.2 per cent of all households are lone parent families. In London the figure is 9.7 per cent and for Inner London it is 11.6 per cent. In Lewisham, 17.8 per cent of all households are lone parent families - by far the highest rate in London. This has a significant bearing on social and labour market policy and also on relative income levels locally.

Lewisham is facing increased levels of deprivation. The 2007 Index of Multiple Deprivation ranked Lewisham 39th out of 354 local areas in England compared to a rank of 57 in 2004. On the specific indicator of income deprivation affecting children, 38 (out of 166) of Lewisham's super output areas are in the 10% most deprived in the country.