Crash puts brakes on boom in region’s population

Statisticians have been forced to severely downgrade their estimates of how the region’s population will expand over the next quarter-century, in the wake of the disastrous economic climate since previous predictions were made in 2008.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the region is now expected to grow by under three quarters of a million people over the next 25 years – fewer than anywhere outside the North East.

Yorkshire’s population growth rate had previously been outpacing London, the South East and the whole of the North of England.

Across the North as a whole, the population is now expected to increase by just 13 per cent by 2035, compared with over 20 per cent in the Midlands and 21 per cent in the South.

Experts warned the figures are a stark reflection of the North’s ongoing struggle to keep economic pace with the rest of the country.

London’s population growth is now forecast to grow at more than double the rate of Yorkshire’s in the years to 2035.

The figures are revealed today in the second part of a major Yorkshire Post study looking at the region’s future population. Today it focuses on the future of our cities, with experts give their views on how the region’s principal urban centres will look in the decades to come.

Leeds – previously earmarked as the fastest-growing city in the North – has seen its population growth forecasts slashed by almost 10 per cent. While the city is still officially growing faster than the English average, the figure may be downgraded further following the recent publication of the initial 2011 census results, which show the city is actually smaller than previously thought.

Hull is now predicted to see its population grow by just seven per cent by 2035. In 2008 the official estimate had been almost 22 per cent. York and Sheffield have also seen significant drops in the rate at which their populations are expected to grow.

Population changes are hugely important as they are intrinsically tied to economic growth. ONS predictions of future growth are also used as the basis for infrastructure investment by Whitehall departments.

“This should be a call to arms,” said Roger Marsh, Leeds-based senior partner at PriceWaterhouseCooper and a former Cabinet Office strategist. “We need to make sure that not only are we on the map, but that we are sufficiently bright about why people and investors need to come to our cities.

“We are seeing increasingly the world’s economic activity being centred on fewer than 500 cities across the world. That in itself makes the case for making sure out cities are the future of our economic plans.”

Since coming to power in 2010, the coalition has been keen to make cities central to its regional growth strategy.

Labour’s regional apparatus has been dismantled and replaced with enhanced “city regions” – natural economic areas with a major urban centre at their core, driving growth across the wider hinterland.

The suggestion that population growth is dipping therefore offers a stark warning that the strategy is far from certain to succeed.

Nonetheless, experts today insist that Yorkshire’s main cities have a bright future based around vital new industries such as advanced manufacturing, medical science and green energy, and driven forward on a wave of futuristic transport systems.