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4
To the Chairman and Members of the
Chislehurst and Sidcup Urban District Council.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
This is my fourth Annual Report to you and the eighteenth
report since Chislehurst and Sidcup became an Urban District
in 1934.
The report for 1951 is in the form of previous years and is
again divided into the following sections:—
Section A.—Vital and Other Statistics and Social Conditions
of the Area.
Section B.—General Provision of Health Services for the
Area.
Section C.—Sanitary and Environmental Circumstances.
Section D.—Factories, Outworkers, etc.
Section E— Housing.
Section F.—Inspection and Supervision of Food.
Section G.—Infectious Diseases.
Section H.—Other Services.
I could not have completed this report without the able
assistance of Mr. Allen, the Chief Sanitary Inspector, and of Mr.
Watling. the Chief Clerk, and without the careful recording of
the work by each of the District Sanitary Inspectors.
There are few new factors which call for special mention.
The year as a whole has been an uneventful one so far as the
health of the district is concerned. The publication of the
Preliminary Report on the census taken in April, 1951, gave the
population as 83,837, but we must await the full report before
any conclusive findings can be discussed.
The London County Council estate at St. Paul's Cray was,
for all practical purposes, completed during the year and it is
mainly due to this that the increase in population, since the
census of 1931, has been so marked. It will be of interest to
watch the development of the health of the people of this estate
and the effect of this influx upon the general static population of
your Urban District. It must not, however, be overlooked that
where one takes a large population from bad and cheap housing
conditions to new houses at increased rents and travelling costs
for the wage earner, and also where priority is given to
tuberculous families, there may result temporary detriment
rather than improvement in the health of the transferred
families. It is for this reason that the development of the health
services, known to-day as the Part III Services of the National