[Report 1951] / Medical Officer of Health, Scunthorpe Borough.

  • Scunthorpe (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1951
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1951] / Medical Officer of Health, Scunthorpe Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/90 (page 9)
    SOCIAL CONDITIONS. The main access to the town from the industrial Midlands is across Keadby Bridge over the river Trent. The bridge carries a single track railway line and a rather narrow double track road. The railway line is inadequate but the road transport flows smoothly. The town is sited at the top of a steep rise, the slopes of which could be beautified and the town thereby given as fine an approach vista as any town could wish for. Scunthorpe is now a compact, well-planned and well-built modern town. Very few buildings are over fifty years old, and there are therefore only a few small areas of substandard houses. All the modern houses are semi-detached and of a good type; the older houses are good type terrace houses. There are no tenements and few of the buildings are more than one storey high. The town is almost entirely built of brick. Many of the houses are owner- occupied and of the remainder the Borough is by far the largest landlord since it owns some 3,684 properties. There is a waiting list for houses of .3,022 which is increasing in spite of the very creditable number of houses being completed annually. There is a severe lack of really imposing buildings, public or otherwise in the town, even the banks and insurance companies have been so far content with very moderate structures and the various council offices are housed in very makeshift buildings. The town is well supplied with playing fields, mainly owned by the large works companies, but the Council runs 12 parks and playing fields as well as having about 132 acres already reserved for future public park development. Five of the most modern schools have been built and planned with really spacious playing fields around them and there are also some playing fields which the older schools can use. Gardening is popular and there are 2,200 allot¬ ments available in various parts of the Borough. Among other amenities to cater for the lighter side of life are two golf courses (outside the boundary of the Borough), six cinemas, a variety theatre, youth centre, public baths, a public library, museum, two weekly markets, 19 public houses and hotels, and a large number of working men’s clubs. The darker side of life is being served by the building of a vast new police station and a veritable labyrinth of law courts flanked by a row of houses which are the direct descendants of the old tied cottages of former days, this time reserved for members of the police force. The town depends entirely on the iron and steel industry for its very existence and its prosperity. Ironstone is obtained locally, mainly by open-cast workings, but also to some extent by mining. The iron is extracted and processed at the local works and this employs the vast majority of the men. Some subsidiary industries such as slag utilisation, tar production and nitrogen extraction from gas give employment which is mainly dependent on the prosperity of the parent industry.