Images by Bethany Gavaghan

First published on 18/06/23

Like lots of counties in the UK, the health inequalities in Bridgend are stark. There is a 10-year gap between the area with the highest life expectancy and the village with one of the lowest.

In Litchard, people live on average to be 84.25 years old. While the local figures have not yet been broken down to local areas from 2021 statistics, the 2011 census showed that there is a worrying difference in life expectancy across the county. That's because just 3.9 miles away from Litchard in Bettws, people are only expected to live to be 75 years old.

These were some of the other areas with the lowest life expectancies in Bridgend according to the 2011 census, showing the places where people are not expected to live past the age of 77. And the stark difference in the life expectancy rate was not just in Litchard. There are several other areas in Bridgend where people live longer according to the data, including six places where people are expected to live past the age of 82.

Bettws is in Bridgend County Borough, surrounded by hills, and around five miles from Bridgend town with a population of 2,243 people according to the 2021 census. The village is also around three miles away from Junction 36 on the M4 Motorway.

The remote village has three local shops, one pub and a couple of takeaways, with almost all children aged between three and 11 attending Betws Primary School on Betws road. And the people inside the tightly-knit community know their village inside and out.

I visited Bettws for the first time in 2023, and wanted to find out what people who lived there made of the statistics, which predict them to have a shorter life. On my way there, I caught a taxi from Bridgend as I was unfamiliar with the public transport route.

Chatting generally about the area, my driver asked me if I'd been to Bettws before. I explained it was the first time I was visiting, but didn't go into any great detail.

As he was looking around, driving towards the village, he noted: "It has good bits and bad bits like anywhere, but it is very cut off, a lot of people find, which makes it harder."

I took the comment with a pinch of salt, but his thoughts seemed to echo throughout the day.

Read this piece here.