First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will now be under renewed pressure after Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) revealed hundreds of her constituents in Govanhill – an area in her Glasgow Southside constituency – are among the most poverty-stricken. Shock figures in the report carried out by the Scottish Government showed Govanhill has been ranked in the 10 percent of ‘most deprived areas’ in income, education, housing and crime and second most deprived in employment and health.

The only area where it ranked ‘least deprived’ was for ‘access to services’ – presumably because of Govanhill’s close proximity to Glasgow city centre.

The news comes as a blow to Scottish National Party leader Ms Sturgeon who has been accused of pushing her case for Scottish independence rather than taking her responsibilities to look after her local constituency seriously.

But the results will come as no surprise to residents living in Govanhill, who has repeatedly called on Ms Sturgeon to act against the “squalid” conditions. 

This is not the first time the Scottish leader has come under pressure over the streets of Govanhill.

The once-bustling area in Glasgow is now said to be infested with rats and cockroaches, which left members of the community reeling – so much so they set up their own campaign group ‘Let’s Save Govanhill’.

‘Let’s Save Govanhill’ was set up in 2015 after the squalid conditions became apparent as early as 2008.

Shocking videos published on the community campaign site showed abandoned rubbish strewn across the floor among dead rats on the streets of the First Minister’s neighbourhood,

The findings, which are published by the Scottish Government every four years, rank ranking “data zones” across Scotland based on levels of income, employment, health, education, housing, access to services and crime.

Overall scores are then calculated for each data zone.

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For Govanhill the figures showed it ranked 552 out of 6,976 areas in Scotland on the scale from ‘most deprived’ to ‘least deprived’.

Pockets of Greenock town ranked the highest for levels of deprivation in Scotland, followed by Carntyne West and Haghill, in Glasgow and Ferguslie Park in Paisley.

Edinburgh’s Stockbridge was named as having the least deprivation.

Reacting to the figures, Communities Secretary Aileen Campbell said more than £1.4billion had been invested in helping low-income households between 2018 and 2019.

She said the Government was set to introduce the new £10-a-week Scottish Child Payment for poorer families from the end of this year.

Ms Campbell said: “We are tackling the underlying causes of poverty and we will continue to work in partnership with local government, the third sector and communities themselves to do all we can to tackle the causes of inequality and support the regeneration of our towns and cities.”

It has been a tough week for the Scottish First Minister who came under pressure when Scottish Finance Secretary Derek Mackay was forced to resign on the same day he was to announce Scotland’s Budget after it emerged he had been texting a 16-year-old schoolboy.

Earlier this week, Ms Sturgeon was also left red-faced when it came to light that the Scottish Nationalist Party had paid for a “Scotland Loves Europe” symbol to be projected on the European commission headquarters – despite hinting it was arranged by Brussels.

Express.co.uk has contacted Ms Sturgeon’s office for comment. 

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