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SECTION A.
STATISTICS AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF THE AREA.
Area (in acres) 3,238
Number of inhabited houses according to
Rate Books 22,037
Rateable value at 31st December, 1951 £683,922
Sum represented by Id. rate £2,760
The Urban District of Merton and Morden lies in the
valley of the Thames and is one of the areas of the so-called
Outer Ring; that is to say part of Greater London within the
Metropolitan police district, outside the Administrative County
of London and the City of London, and the area is drained by
the River Wandle, the Pyl and Beverley Brooks, tributaries of
the Thames. The district is generally flat and sheltered, the
whole lying between the 42-ft. and 141-ft. ordnance datum levels.
With the exception of a belt of sand or alluvium in the NorthEastern
part running through Merton Park, the rest of the
district has a subsoil of clay.
The area is both residential and industrial and, as has been
described before, except for a few factories in the older parts of
the area and some unavoidable fringes, industry has been
planned so as to occupy three main factory sites, leaving the
residential parts of the area generally to enjoy the quietness
oi their homes remote from the noise and essential traffic of
industry.
The residential part of the district is part London
dormitory and partly and increasingly occupied by residents
engaged in industry or business within the area, but a very
large number of workers come into the area daily so that the
day-time population concentrated in the factory areas is an
important factor to be borne in mind in considering any
arrangements for the population of the district.
The greater portion of housing of the district is owner
occupied, but the Council owns and manages a pre-war housing
estate of some 500 houses and has built several large four-storey
blocks of flats scattered in various parts of the area to meet the
post-war housing need. A considerable part of Morden is
formed of the St. Helier L.C.C. housing estate.
The area is fortunate in having secured the provision of
extensive open spaces, in all amounting to 368 acres, in fourteen
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