White population plummets in parts of inner city Birmingham

THE number of white British people living in Birmingham districts is plummeting as they leave ethnically diverse pockets, according to a report.

While the UK as a whole is becoming more diverse, urban communities are increasingly segregated, the research by Professor Ted Cantle and Professor Eric Kauffman reveals.

The report said there was “a growing isolation of the white majority from minorities in urban zones”.

While the white British population accounted for 65.6 per cent of Brummies in 2001, this dropped to 53.1 per cent in 2011. However, pockets of the city have seen a far more dras- tic decline. White British inhabitants in Small Heath fell from 40 per cent in 1991 to just 11 per cent in 2011 – a drop of more than half. But Handsworth was the district with the smallest percentage of white British inhabitants – just seven per cent of its residents. While half of the community in Nechells was white British in 1991, 20 years later they made up only 17 per cent. The make-up of Aston and Sparkbrook’s populations had undergone similarly dramatic changes.

Professors Cantle and Kauffman said the figures were bad news for local communities where segregation could lead to an increase in prejudice and intolerance. They wrote that the Government must do more to encourage white residents to remain in diverse areas, such as placing their children in ethnically mixed schools.

They added: “Policies may be needed to encourage white British residents to remain in diverse areas, to choose, rather than avoid, diverse areas when they do re-locate, encouraging similar choices with respect to placing pupils in diverse schools.”

They also wanted minorities to be encouraged to move into predominantly white areas, saying the Government should “reduce barriers to minority settlement”.