Genuine question - where do all the people come from?

[Twospaniels]

There are so many new builds going up, in every town across Britain, along with villages being enlarged etc.

There are plans for 3500 new houses near where I live.

Where do all the people come from to buy / rent them?

In the year 2000 the UK has a population of 59,000,000. It's now at 68,000,000.

Presumably they come from a combination of procreation and net migration.

Well when a man and a woman love each other very much...

But less happily - our population has rocketed but our infrastructure has not kept pace. That's why smart meters are being pushed, why traffic is so bad, why the NHS lists are so long even without covid, and why house prices are going up. We won't pay higher taxes for what we need so things will get worse. Sorry.

Oh, and due to corrupt tax structures there are no incentives to renovate empty tatty homes, just to build badly designed new ones all squashed together. Again, we get what we vote for.

Here you go, OP:
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/overviewoftheukpopulation/january2021

In mid-2019, the population of the UK reached an estimated 66.8 million.

The UK population's growth rate from mid-2018 to mid-2019, at 0.5%, was slower than any year since mid-2004.

Between 2016 and 2019, long-term international immigration, emigration and net migration had remained broadly stable. However, in year ending December 2019 and year ending March 2020 (the latest data available), there was an increase in immigration and net migration.

Migration has continued to be the main driver of the UK's population growth since the 1990s.

It is projected that there will be an additional 7.5 million people aged 65 years and over in the UK in 50 years' time.

Latest life expectancy figures show the slowdown in improvements seen since 2011 has continued; life expectancy at birth was 79.4 years for males and 83.1 years for females in the period 2017 to 2019.

Lots more info there. An ageing population is a key factor and will be a massive issue requiring changes in the way we live in future as we adapt to having a greater proportion of older people compared to how we are currently set up to support them.

As you're on MN I presume it's a bit late for a talk about the birds and the bees?

It's not just about providing for more people, it's also about the places people choose to live, and about the number of people in each household. People naturally want to stay in their homes; many of these are older single people/couples in a family home. Divorced families need rooms for their children even if they don't live with them full time. Homes stand empty in some locations while there his high pressure on housing elsewhere. There is more incentive to build new homes rather than restore existing stock. There are lots of reasons.

Population growth, pure and simple. The UK's population has grown every year for pretty much the last 30 years or more, last year it grew 0.5%. That's a hell of a lot of extra people - 350,000 in 2019 alone!

This is largely because the birth rate is outstripping the death rate, i.e. more babies are being born than people are dying, but this is not because we have a growing birth rate (ie people having lots of extra children), the birth rate in the UK is actually falling, from the stereotypical 2.4 children it's now more like 1.7 children per woman/family. The reason the population is growing and we don't have enough housing is more because people are living much much longer than they used to (and in housing terms, also living at home much longer as opposed to moving to residential care or in with relative), which is a good thing of course, but it means houses aren't being freed up as quickly. To some extent the growth in housing demand over the last century also stems from the reduction in multigenerational living, so where in 1921 there may have been more families where you may have had people living with their elderly parents and working adult age children all together (and in middle and upper class families, some domestic servants/employees also although this was already well in decline by then), nowadays the vast majority of people live singly, in couples or nuclear families with children only so you need fewer large houses and more small individual units hence why you see so many housing estates being built...

Immigration also plays a role but a much smaller one than many people imagine! Net immigration to the UK is also falling and was 270,000 in 2019...

Population is only one aspect. Households are becoming smaller with many more people living alone. Often older people outliving their partners , plus single divorced people. That means we need more homes per head of population and will probably have to incentivise older people to downsize

Immigration

There are also 24,000 empty homes in London alone so doing something to stop that would help

Thank you for this information. It’s really helpful in trying to understand how our population is growing!

@tabulahrasa @denverRegina - not so helpful. Why bother to comment if you don’t have anything intelligent to say?

You would think more people = more taxes paid = more infrastructure. But no. There seems to be a black hole whete money just disappears

people are living longer - so old people needs somewhere to live for longer
old people no longer move in with family - more likely to pay for carers etc due to the fact that people live miles away from each other
more divorces/single parents
people work away so need a small base near work
immigration
general population increase - if average is/was 2.4 people then its automativally going to increase as each 2 people are replacing themselves plus an additional .4 of a person!
old houses going to ruin

“Why bother to comment if you don’t have anything intelligent to say?”

Well I could have asked how you could possibly not be aware that there’s a massive housing shortage in the U.K.?... but I went for a silly joke instead as it seemed kinder.

Yes, my parents live in a 3 bed house.They should have sold years ago and got a smaller one. By the time they do die, the house will need a lot doing to it and may well put off 1st time buyers. There will be lots of people like this.

Mind you, by me, all they build are flats. Houses get converted into hmos.

I know what you mean, op. We are in a small town and a huge housing estate has been built. It feels almost overnight that all the houses are now busy and lived in by families yet there's still a real demand for anything that goes up for sale. I keep wondering where all the empty places are that surely they must have left?

There are loads of empty properties everywhere, which is criminal given how many homeless people there are. Many people with 2nd, or more, homes. Air B and B’s. My landlord kicked us (a family) out and our house is now a holiday let.

I have several family members who have bought brand new four bed houses over the last few years. None of them needed four bedrooms, one is just a couple with no kids (and no intention of having any)! Why they need several extra bedrooms is beyond me, but even so there are lots of four, five and six bed Victorian terraces nearby that could make amazing homes with a bit of work. People don't want that though - they want a nice shiny newbuild where they can choose all the fixtures and fittings themselves and move in with no need for renovations and DIY. They want three bathrooms and an en suite, not a downstairs bathroom extension off the kitchen.

There are lots of empty houses near me, but no will to make them the affordable option when it comes to energy efficiency and modernisation. There are also several large new housing estates, with very few two bed or one bed options. It's much easier to buy one of these with a part exchange deal than deal with long chains, problems mortgaging old houses that need lots of work, dealing with tradesmen to fix them up and paying five times as much for energy bills once you've moved in. Ignore the fact there are no new schools, doctors surgeries, parks, shops or bus stops nearby...

@tabulahrasa

“Why bother to comment if you don’t have anything intelligent to say?”

Well I could have asked how you could possibly not be aware that there’s a massive housing shortage in the U.K.?... but I went for a silly joke instead as it seemed kinder.

But that is the question I was asking, in another way! 🤷🏼‍♀️

London