The following reflection was written by Claire Boot, who is a member of the Servants Southall team located in London England. If you would like to learn more about Southall and joining this team, click here.
If you were in the UK two and a half years ago, you may remember filling in a long form about yourself and everyone in your household. The 2011 Census results are now available and will be used to shape government policies and public services for years to come.
According to the census, the population of Southall’s four central wards was 55,825 on that April night in 2011, an average of almost 82 people per hectare (a hectare, according to a quick Google search, is roughly equivalent to the grassy area inside an athletics track). Almost a third of Southall’s households were designated as overcrowded.
But Southall is well-known for having a hidden population. It’s not unusual to find houses with two or three people living in each room. Outhouses and garages, the ‘sheds with beds’, provide unregulated accommodation in the back gardens of every street. Cemeteries and the canalside towpath offer some shelter to those sleeping rough and dependent on the free meals served by the gurdwaras. It’s likely that there are thousands more people living in Southall’s four central wards, and in far more overcrowded conditions, than the census suggests.
In terms of country of birth, ethnic origin and religion, the census snapshot of Southall rings true. Forty per cent were born in the UK, whereas 43% were born in Asia. Over two thirds of the population described themselves as Asian, 12% as White, 11% as Black and 8% as Mixed or Other. Sikhism is the faith of 31%, with 23% Muslim, 19% Hindu and 18% Christian. Only 3% stated that they had no religion, a stark contrast to the English average of 25%.
But the statistic titled ‘Year of Arrival in the UK’ is the most eye-opening: 27% of Southall’s officially recorded population, more than 15,000 people, arrived in the UK between 2001 and 2011. Although the area’s population increased by 4,000 during this period, the census doesn’t reveal how many people born in the UK – like, for example, most of the Servants Southall team and interns – moved in. At the very least, 20% of the population must have moved out of Southall between 2001 and 2011.
For those involved in public policy, making plans for the health, education and transport needs for a highly transitional and ethnically diverse population, with unknown numbers of undocumented people, is no small challenge. And for those who live here, Southall will continue to be an experiment in creating community amidst the comings and goings of many people with different cultures, languages and faiths in one small suburb of London.
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