Booming population

http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1681672007

This report puts some light on the scale of our booming population, triggered by mass immigration. Whilst counting the coffers at our expanding economy because of this I hope Gordon Brown has plans in place to help our buckling, weight laden infrastructure (roads/ homes/ health/ schools etc etc).

Although immigration is positive in itself, surely an overhaul of immigration policy is required otherwise we could be heading for any amount of problems.

WormThatTurned wrote:

http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1681672007

This report puts some light on the scale of our booming population, triggered by mass immigration. Whilst counting the coffers at our expanding economy because of this I hope Gordon Brown has plans in place to help our buckling, weight laden infrastructure (roads/ homes/ health/ schools etc etc).

Although immigration is positive in itself, surely an overhaul of immigration policy is required otherwise we could be heading for any amount of problems.

The article and the reports of this have been slightly misleading in that these figures are PROJECTIONS based on current rates rather than PREDICTIONS... this makes a huge difference on whether we expect the populations to get to this level.

To take an example in the 60's with the baby boom populations projections for the year 2000 were around 75 million, this never came about because the birth rate did not sustain itself at that level. In the same way these latest projections are based on a level of brith rate and immigration at present rate which takes into account the high influx form eastern Europe straight after expansion, which might not be likely to continue.

Again I wonder about the amount of publicity that this has received and the underlying comment in the media.

I am despairing at the media at the moment..!

However I did see some clips from 1971, I think it was, about that earlier projection and suggesting people all had fewer kids etc, quite amusing to see it now. Of course the following year was a massive boom so I guess people didnt pay immediate attention..!

I do think that immigration will need to be better aligned with infrastructure etc, or we could be in trouble. However, 50 years from now, we could all be emigrating to Eastern Europe or China for our own better life..!

Interesting fact I heard on the radio this morning...

For the UK to have the same population density as Jersey we would have to increase our population by 170million...quite a way to go...

Quite a way we dont want to go !!

be interesting to see Jersey's carbon footprint then...!

I would think that the growing elderly demographic will have more to do with population levels than immigration. As people immigrate others emigrate and I honestly do not believe immigration will be a huge problem in the future.

Dididave, any chance you could make your avatar a bit smaller? I don't know if the same thing is happening to other people but on my screen it's so wide that everything else is scrunched up.

Thanks

koshkha wrote:

Dididave, any chance you could make your avatar a bit smaller? I don't know if the same thing is happening to other people but on my screen it's so wide that everything else is scrunched up.

Thanks

Oo yeah, just noticed myself. Will fix it!