Southgate, West Sussex

Southgate
The 1950s shopping parade at Wakehurst Drive, Southgate East
Southgate
Location within West Sussex
Population8,106 
OS grid referenceTQ265365
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townCRAWLEY
Postcode districtRH10, RH11
Dialling code01293
PoliceSussex
FireWest Sussex
AmbulanceSouth East Coast
UK Parliament

Southgate is one of the 14 residential neighbourhoods in Crawley, a town and borough in West Sussex, England. Crawley was planned and laid out as a New Town after the Second World War, based on the principle of self-contained neighbourhoods surrounding a town centre of civic and commercial buildings. Southgate was one of the four in the "inner ring" closest to the town centre, and was intended to be the largest of the nine designed in the original master plan. It was built in two stages between the 1950s and the 1970s, but retains some older buildings from before the New Town era and has "significant areas of pre-New Town character".

The area was settled by pre-Roman people, and industrial and other artefacts from that era were found during construction of the neighbourhood. In the 19th century, after Crawley was connected to the national railway network, housing developed south of the line around the Brighton Road, which divides the modern neighbourhood in two. New Town-era expansion produced a large residential area with a high proportion of terraced houses and a range of schools, places of worship and community facilities; but some historic buildings and areas of open space remain, including an award-winning park. The population at the time of the United Kingdom Census 2011 was 8,533.