View report page

8
STATISTICS AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS
OF THE AREA.
Area (in acres) ... 12,558
Registrar-General's estimate of resident population,
mid-year, 1936 ... 160,300
Number of inhabited houses including flats (end of
1936) according to Rate Books ... 46,325
Rateable Value (April 1st, 1937) ... £1,812,640
Sum represented by a penny rate (1936 /7) ... £6,850
Social Conditions of Inhabitants.
See Annual Report for the year 1934.
There was little change in the unemployment figures in this
district. The number of people who migrated here from distressed
areas being greater than in the previous year and the number on
the unemployment register being about the same, the general
position with regard to unemployment is really better. The ordinary
winter register for unemployed males is about 1,000. This figure
has occasionally, for short periods, soared to 3,000, the fluctuation
being due to frost with consequent laying-off of men in the building
trades. There are about 300 painters and seasonal workers, icecream
vendors, and persons employed in parks and seaside occupations,
so that the number of unemployed falls in the summer to
between five and six hundred. There are some 200 to 300 unemployed
women, these being chiefly young married women. There
are practically no single women on the register in the categories
of domestic servants, factory hands or clerical workers.
In general, the relatively low unemployment figures are due
to the extensive building in the district. On cessation of building
activities there will probably be some return of the unemployed to
the distressed areas on account of the higher rents in Greater
London.