Young families being pushed out of London

…but migrants will make it a city of 10m

YOUNG families are leaving London at an alarming rate as property prices in the capital continue to soar, an official analysis reveals.

It comes as historic levels of immigration push the city’s population towards 10 million.

The number of children and teenagers is dropping by more than 30,000 a year as parents in their 30s fail to cope with London’s sky-high housing costs, the Office for National Statistics found.

However, immigration is helping push the capital’s overall population up by almost 120,000 a year.

According to ONS estimates, an average of nearly 100,000 people from overseas moved to the capital every year between 2011 and 2015, helping increase the population by nearly 5 per cent.

But the full impact of immigration is greater still. More than half a million babies were born in London between 2011 and 2015, and a majority were born to immigrant mothers.

In 2015, 58 per cent of babies born in London were children of mothers who were themselves born abroad.

The movement of people in and out of London has dwarfed population shifts in other major cities, the report said.

London’s population grew by 469,000 between 2011 and 2015, a rise of 5.7 per cent. The 2015 population of 8,674,000 is projected to rise to 9.8 million by 2025.

Bristol was the city with the next greatest percentage growth, rising in the four years to 2015 by 4.5 per cent to 1,119,000. Bris- tol grew because it attracted large numbers of students, with nearly 5,000 moving in every year, and for its low death rates.

The slowest-growing city in the UK was Glasgow, which over

‘They may have children

four years saw its population expand by just 1 per cent, 17,000 people.

The children’s flight from London meant 31,700 more under18s left every year to live elsewhere in Britain than arrived. They departed alongside a movement of 33,600 people aged between 30 and 44 out of London each year.

The report described the movement of children as a ‘phenomenon’. It said: ‘A likely factor is that the parents of these children are leaving the city to find more affordable accommodation for their growing family.’

On the departure of high numbers of thirtysomethings, the ONS said: ‘The cost of property in London is likely to be important as people in this age group may be looking to buy for the first time, and may have children’. The rise of property prices and rents in London is now held responsible for a decline in owner occupation among younger people. It is also considered the prime reason for the rise of the so- called ‘boomerang generation’, the high proportion of young people who continue to live with their parents through their 20s and into their 30s.

London was the only city in Britain to see a drop in numbers of people aged 19-21 after 2011, a result of many students choosing to go to universities elsewhere.

There were also over 90,000 more people of 45 and older who left each year than arrived, many choosing to retire in distant towns or the countryside.