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Statistics and Social Conditions
of the Area.
Area (in acres) 3,764
Registrar General's estimate of Resident Civilian
Population, 1946 72,710
Number of inhabited houses (end of 1946) according to
Rate Books 21,361
Rateable Value (1946) £927,625
Sum represented by a penny rate (1946) £3,827
While the local geography of Southgate, details of which will be
found in previous Annual Reports, has not altered, the same cannot
be said for the nature of the district. The main deviation may be
summed up in the fact that, while the number of houses available
for occupation in the Borough has decreased owing to war damage
and several years' cessation of building operations, the population
has increased by at least 7,000 since before the war. The result is
overcrowding, and the splitting up of houses, never intended for this
purpose, into separate flats. Thus, while there has been no material
alteration in the general type or distribution of the population, the
over-all total has increased to a point which passes saturation.
This has presented and will continue to present public health
problems. of which housing is only one. Superficially, one cannot
say that the face of Southgate has altered more than the passage of
years might lead one to expect; in actual fact, processes are at work
which may not yet have shown themselves to any marked extent,
but which are none the less fraught with grave possibilities. They
all point to the need for continued vigilance and the adoption of a
balanced, long-term policy, designed to retain the individual
character and amenities of the Borough.
The absence of a factory area or even of many individual
factories is still a satisfactory feature of the Borough. But a
dormitory may still be overcrowded, and perhaps not so spick and
span as those who have its future at heart would wish to see. We
cannot be altogether content with the explanation that conditions
are abnormal, the road to progress still impeded, obstacles virtually
insurmountable. Much can be done to repair the ravages of war, to
ensure that what we still have we make certain of retaining. There
is much at stake, more, perhaps, than some imagine. We stand,
literally, at the cross-roads, and must take steps to ensure that we
continue along the path which past endeavours have so clearly
indicated.
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