We will need to build a home every three to four minutes to accommodate ongoing rapid. immigration-driven population growth if the level of overseas net migration into England returns to the pre-lockdown level of about 230,000 per year.
That is something that is likely given the government’s intentional plan to increase non-EU immigration as part of its points-based system (set to come into force from January).
New data was released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as part of their 2018-based household projections on 29 June 2020.
As the ONS says, these ‘show how many additional households would form if the population of England keeps growing as it did between 2011 and 2018 and keeps forming households as it did between 2001 and 2011’.
The below graph shows the new household projections at different levels of international net migration to England.
For context, average net migration to England 2009-2018 was 222,000. In the most recent year (2018) it was 230,000.
What the projections suggest is that, if immigration returns merely to its pre-lockdown level, we will need to build between 150,000 and 190,000 homes each year in England over the next 25 years, or one every three to four minutes (ie somewhere between the principal projection – the orange line above, with a total of 3.7 million more homes needed over the period, and the high migration scenario – the blue line above, with a total of 4.7 million more homes needed over the period).
This is not the number of homes needed due to immigration alone, but the projected increase in the number of households resulting from total projected population growth in England at different levels of international immigration.
However, about 80% of population growth is driven by immigration directly or indirectly (as has been confirmed by multiple sources – i.e. the ONS, Full Fact and by our paper here).
Below is a graph of depicting the corresponding sub-national population projections for England on which the household projections are based (these were released in March 2020).
They show that unless the pre-lockdown level of immigration is reduced significantly once the pandemic has passed, rapid population growth in an already very overcrowded England will continue long into the future.
