Inside the anti-depressant capital of Britain: The miserable northern suburb where one in three people beg their doctor for medication

Beneath a green canopy of trees and a carpet of well-kept lawns, the small town of Brinnington hides its dark secret.

The leafy main road, two churches, a post office and an array of shops could at first sight pass for another well-heeled suburb of Stockport, Greater Manchester.

But scratch the surface and it becomes easier to understand why this is the depression capital of the country with nearly one in three people (31.7 per cent) begging their doctor for help with the mental health condition in one particular enclave.

Other statistics in Brinnington from the 2021 Census weave their own depressing story.

The unemployment rate here is 5 per cent, vs 2.9 per cent for England as a whole.

And the proportion of long-term sick or disabled people is an astonishing 11.7 per cent – nearly three times the national average of 4.1 per cent.

The area’s economic woes and the fact that many seemed resigned to their fate – up to 40 per cent of people in Brinnington admit to smoking compared to 4 per cent in more affluent local areas – has led to the most troubling statistic of all.

People here will die on average 10 years sooner than those just five miles away in better-off Bramhall.

Perhaps surprisingly, in 2023, Which? Magazine named Stockport in the dozen best place to retire in Britain and last year the Sunday Times rated it the best place to live in the North West, following a £1bn town centre regeneration programme. 

But the town centre is a good 40-minute walk away from Brinnington, or a 10-minute bus journey, for those who can make it.

And despite the acres of green space nearby, including the nearby Reddish Vale country park, Brinnington, tucked into a bend of the M60 motorway, seems trapped in a spiral of discontent.

One woman told us: ‘They are forever moving people here, the homeless, refugees, the unemployed all get dumped here and the rest of us just have to carry on.

‘Despite what it looks like, this is still a very working class area and most of the housing used to be council houses.

‘The problem is the jobs have gone and there are a lot of people here who no longer know what to do with themselves. We can’t seem to move on.’

Phyllis Williamson, 67, who has lived in Brinnington for over 40 years, admits to being surprised at the depression statistics.

‘The town looks affluent from the top road but there is a lot of poverty once you start looking around.’ she says.

‘The council tries to keep the place nice but there are a lot of people with problems in the the town houses and some of the tower blocks we have here.

‘You can see it on people’s faces. The community spirit is still here but it is not like it was forty years ago when you could knock on anyone’s door.

‘Now you would have to walk a long way before you would find a door you would be comfortable knocking on.’

The 11-storey tower blocks – there are seven barely seen from the main road but which dominate the landscape further back into town – are home to an array of people including those with disabilities.

One of the blocks, Conway Towers, is home to a lot of young families, some of whom are struggling to get by.

One woman who came outside, pushing her pram to the local shops, told us: ‘I have got four kids and a partner who has mental health problems but we are stuck in this high rise.

‘I have been here eight years and it seems as if I will be here forever. It looks like there is nowhere else to go.’

She was heading for the 1960s-style shop precinct just off the main Brinnington Road, where stands the local library, some council offices, a small supermarket and a chemists. Behind them there is a barbers, a bookies and a booze shop while up the road stands a B&M store and a post office opposite next to the bus stop.

Yards away, outside St Luke Church, three middle-aged women stand talking while smoking a joint, leaving the pungent smell of weed hanging in the air.

Six years ago, when Brinnington first began to appear near the top of the ‘depression stats’, a local GP, Dr James Higgins, now Primary Care Network clinical director for the area, examined his caseload for The Guardian.

He looked back on every consultation in the previous six weeks. Of the 123 adult patients he saw, 24 per cent were actively asking for help with depression, a further 28 per cent were already being treated for the condition and 16 per cent had previously had it.

‘Only 31 per cent had never been depressed,’ he said, admitting slight surprise at his own findings — and that was before the pandemic hit.

Nearly half of all homes in Brinnington are social housing, with 68 per cent of people paying rent to either a private or public landlord. A total of 45 per cent of people live alone, compared with 30 per cent nationally.

Dr Dalia Tsimpida, lecturer in gerontology at the University of Southampton, has investigated what makes some neighbourhoods mental health hotspots.

She said: ‘Deprivation is a key driver, accounting for up to 39 per cent of recorded depression levels across England, although this varies dramatically by location.’

Her research has identified a previously overlooked factor: noise pollution, which will certainly be a factor for some in Drinnington with the non-stop din from the M60 barely a stone’s throw from many homes.

More noise pollution comes from rowdy teenagers screeching around on motorbikes, as well as the cars, buses, lorries and trains that fill the environment with a cacophony of sounds.

But worst of all, by far, are the planes that pass overhead every minute, landing and taking off from nearby Manchester Airport.

Locals, however, say they don’t take it seriously. Several told us: ‘You get used to it. It’s just white noise.’

But areas with transportation noise exceeding 55 decibels on average in a 24-hour period show much stronger links between health deprivation, disability, and depression.

‘Environmental stressors play a crucial but underappreciated role,’ said Dr Tsimpida.

‘While transportation noise doesn’t directly cause depression, it significantly amplifies the impact of other risk factors.’

She added: ‘Living in a depression hotspot exposes people to what may be “contagion effects” – both social and environmental.

‘We observed that mental health challenges may spread through communities through mechanisms like social isolation, reduced community resources, environmental degradation, and normalised hopelessness.’

Recently, Stockport Council has trialled a new approach to help those residents ‘feeling low, lonely, or in need of a lifestyle change.’

The non-medical ‘Wellbeing Prescription’ relies on exercise and activity instead of drugs and has been run in partnership with Life Leisure, Age UK Stockport, Viaduct Care CIC, and local GP surgeries in Brinnington and Bramhall.

But locals complain that the problem is that some people do not look after the town.

One woman said: ‘We have a street cleaner who comes here three times a week and takes between 30-50 bags of rubbish off the streets on every visit.

‘He has told me his bags are full of things like hypodermic needles, dog dirt, babies’ nappies and lots of stuff people should be disposing of themselves.

‘They just walk out of the door and throw stuff on the ground and leave it to the street cleaner.And then, as soon as he is gone, they will throw out some more.’

Among the haul that could be seen last week was a Morrisons supermarket trolley amid a pile of filled rubbish bags.

Another man. who asked not to be named said local contractors had learnt to be cautious when working on people’s homes in Brinnington.

‘One builder thought his compressor had packed in during a job but when he went outside he saw it had been unplugged and a couple of lads were carrying it down the road! They dropped it and ran when he shouted at them.’

Brinnington’s sense of community is not helped by the fact that it has lost all four of its pubs leaving just two Labour and Conservative clubs as its only watering holes.

Consigned to history – and leaving the community poorer for it – are the Horsefield Arms, The Farmers Arms, the Jack and Jill and the Cheshire Cat.

But for all its problems, Brinnington railway station stands testament to the area’s indomitable spirit.

Winner of the best-kept station award in 2023, its front hall is covered in racks of clothing and hats and stacks of books, dvds and trinkets of every description.

Everything on show is free for anyone to take.

Station master Stewart Hall, 43, said: ‘We get up to 200 people down here a day and they take what they need. Some people just come down here for a chat, to pass the time and feel better.

‘They are all welcome!’