Two decades of rapid growth

Press, 30 August 1978, Page 16

Two decades of rapid growth

Much of Hornby’s residential as well as industrial growth has taken place since the Second World War. When the county township was established in 1953, the area was said to have seen “remarkable development, both residentially and industrially in recent years.” The population of Hornby was then about 2500.

In the next three or four years population and property values both about doubled in Hornby. The Hei Hei housing block went ahead — about 600 houses on 112 acres, a quarter of them state houses and the rest built under the group housing scheme. A new school was built and a new shopping centre established on Wycola Avenue. Private subdivisions spread hundreds more new houses in the Aymes Road, Springs Road and Branston Avenue districts. Social facilities developed along with this growth of population. The Hornby Working Men’s Club opened its first premises at the end of 1957 and a decade later, in July 1967, the trust hotel opened its doors for business.

Until 1953, HornbyIslington was a single riding of the Paparua County. All amenities — the school, churches, recreation grounds, post office, lodges and places of employment — were shared. They still are, even though the boundaries of the Hornby County Town as they were fixed by the county engineer and the chairman and secretary of the local residents’ association did not include much of Islington. Some of the growth of what people think of as Hornby has since taken place outside those boundaries, which skirted the then populated area and excluded land of low rateable value. When the county town, was constituted on April 1, 1953, it had a population of about 2500 and a capital value of about £1,500,000. Twelve years later, by 1965, the population of Hornby had grown to 6500 and the town’s capital value had shot up to £6,500,000. In October, 1971, the county town became a county borough; in De-

borough became in its turn a district community. Today the Hornby District Community has a population of more than 8500 in an area of five square kilometres (there

have been minor adjustments to the boundary since 1953). It is the largest of the three district communities in the county in population, although less than half the area of

the neighbouring Sockburn District Community. A district community of more than 8500 people, spread over five square kilometres is a far cry from the open primeval

plain of more than plain of more than a century ago and from the scattered small holdings and few “grand houses” which made up the district when the name “Hornby” was first aplied to it.