Scarborough District — Current theme: Housing

The first census to report on how well people were housed was that of 1891, but the only statistics gathered were on the number of rooms and the number of people in each household. Note that in 1931 and 1951 the least crowded category reported on by the Scottish census was "Under 2 persons per room", while from 1971 onwards the most crowded category reported on anywhere was "Over 1.5 persons per room, so it is not possible to present exactly the same measure for all years and areas. From 1951 onwards, more questions were asked about 'amenities', meaning specific facilities that households either possessed or had shared access to, and from 1961 data were gathered on tenure: whether households owned or rented their homes.

One interesting measure of progress is the change in the amenities covered by the census. In 1951, these were piped water, a cooking stove, a kitchen sink, a 'water closet' meaning a flush toilet, and a 'fixed bath', as distinct from a tin bath hung on the wall between uses. By 2011, the only "amenity" recorded was central heating, so direct comparisons over the whole period from 1951 to 2011 are impossible, other than looking at what proportion of all households had "all amenities", i.e. all of whatever amenities were listed for each census. Our density data are counts of persons in households, while our amenity data are counts of households.

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We hold these detailed statistics for Scarborough, which we graph and tabulate here:

Available datasets	Period covered	Variables (number of categories)
Exclusive use of a bath	1951 to 1991	Having exclusive use of Bath/Shower (3)
Exclusive use of a W.C.	1951 to 1991	Having exclusive use of W.C. (3)
Having Central Heating	1991 to 2011	Having Central Heating (2)
Housing Amenities	1951 to 2011	Housing Amenities (2)
Housing Density (Generalised)	1911 to 2011	Persons per Room (3)
Housing Density (Scottish categories)	1911 to 1951	Persons per Room (3)
Housing Tenure	1961 to 2011	Housing Tenure (3)
Total Households	1951 to 2011	Total Households (4)

Read more about how we hold statistics here.