A new TV documentary show is to be filmed with a focus on the lives and experience of immigrants living in the UK.
The Channel 4 series will look at life in Derby Road in Southampton in six one-hour programmes to be broadcast next year. The programme has the working title Immigration Street.
Derby Road in the city’s Bevois area has a large ethnic mix of residents, many of whom arrived in the UK as a result of immigration. The series aims to look at how the community of the street and people’s friendships and relationships have evolved as a result.
Nick Mirsky from Channel 4 told Indiewire: "Immigration is clearly an emotive issue dominating British politics and debates right now. Although the experience of the changes brought about by immigration will be different from place to place, we expect many of the themes that emerge from following life on Derby Road will resonate across the country."
The programme is being made by Love Production, the same company which filmed the controversial Benefits Street. Benefits Street made national headlines in the UK and attracted hundreds of complaints from the public.
Love Production’s creative director Kieran Smith said the company decided to focus on immigration because it is “one of the most keenly debated subjects in the UK right now”. He said it was important that people have settled in the UK have an opportunity to share their honest experiences of life in modern Britain.
Immigration Street is scheduled to be broadcast early in the New Year.