Barking and Dagenham

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Borough profile

Barking was created in 1965 out of the greater part of the municipal borough of Barking (transferred from Essex to Greater London) and the entire borough of Dagenham, with just the northern tip of Dagenham incorporated in Redbridge and a small area of Barking in Newham. The borough was renamed Barking and Dagenham in 1980 and is bordered by Havering to the east with the River Rom forming part of the boundary, Newham to the west with the River Boding forming much of the border and the River Thames which forms the borough’s boundary with Bexley and Greenwich. To the north, Chadwell Heath forms a thin slice of the borough between Redbridge and Havering.

A lot of the housing in the borough was constructed by the London County Council during the interwar period of 1918-1939, with a notable example being the development of the Beacon Tree estate which, at its peak, held around 120,000 residents. In general, and in contrast to earlier suburban expansion in Essex and around London, houses built during this time were characterised by much lower building densities and were more likely to be “family friendly” with gardens and three bedrooms, as following recommendation made in the wartime “Tudor Walters” report (1918).

After World War Two, financial assistance, the payment of government subsidies towards the costs of building houses and a great increase in the number of houses built by the Local Authority and let at lower-than-market rent, along with the increase in real incomes, made it possible for many more people to move to the suburbs, escaping slum conditions in the East of London.

While the construction of an industrial estate at Barking and the acquisition of a riverside estate at Dagenham by the Ford Motor Company created jobs in the area, even at the very peak of local employment, residents of Barking and Dagenham have been more likely to work outside their local area.

Following a long and relatively steep decline in population since the 1960s, Barking and Dagenham is now one of the fastest-growing Local Authorities in the country. National Statistics projects that the population is likely to have increased to 174,000 in 2020 from an estimated population of around 169,000 residents in 2008. However, estimates which take into account the increased house building taking place in the borough, particularly Thames Gateway social and physical regeneration schemes such as Barking Riverside, put the 2020 population at around 205,000 residents.

Barking and Dagenham has also become significantly more ethnically diverse in recent years. The proportion of residents who are from BME backgrounds (especially Black British) has risen from 6.8% in 1991 to an estimated 23% today.

Barking and Dagenham local authority website

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