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Section A—Natural and Social
Conditions of the District
Area (in acres) 3,346
Number of inhabited houses (end of 1956) according
to Rate Books 17,044
Rateable Value at 31st December, 1956 £864,238
Sum represented by 1d. rate £3,470
The Sanitary District, situated about midway between the Thames and
the North Downs, is roughly rectangular in shape. It is approximately
one mile in width, and commencing at a datum level of 72 at
the northern boundary, it extends for some five miles in a southerly direction
up the slope of the North Downs to a height of 450 feet above sea level.
The subsoil, which is clay in the northern part, changes to a sandy
gravel as one proceeds southwards, and then merges into chalk, which
covers the southern half of the district.
The River Wandle forms the eastern boundary in the northern part,
one head of the river arising from several springs at the outcropping of the
chalk near the centre of the district. The last twenty years or so have seen a
considerably increased abstraction of water for both industrial and domestic
purposes from the chalky strata. The result of this has been that with the
lowering of the water table, the flow of the feeder springs is now much more
sensitive to the periodic variations in rainfall. Interruption of the flow in
varying degree is now more frequent. Fortunately the annual rainfall has
been adequate in recent years to prevent a complete cessation of all the
springs such as occurred in 1949, when both ponds were reduced to stagnant
collections of surface water.
An event with not insignificant social implication was the revaluation
during 1956 of properties with some alteration in the distribution of rate
burden. As a result of the revised assessments, the total rateable value has
been increased by approximately 62%.
Relatively little industry is established within the area, the district
being mainly residential with the majority of its inhabitants earning their
livelihood in greater London. Housing density is highest in the northern
end where the London County Council Housing Estate of St. Helier makes
the predominant contribution to development in this part of the district.
Density is somewhat less in the centre of the town and falls markedly in the
south due to the existence of considerable green belt land and the Surrey
County Council's small-holdings. The census of 1951 shewed that the
three St. Helier Wards jointly had 41.9 persons to the acre, the centre of
the district represented by the North-East, North-West, and Central Wards
25.8 and in the South, the South-East and South-West Wards 8.0 persons
to the acre. The rateable value per head of population is the lowest in
Metropolitan Surrey.
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