Bob Seely Mps Ridiculous Myth of Declining Northern Towns Able to Mop up the 5 Million Houses Needed in South

Telegraph

Whilst better design is part of the issue, frankly numbers, density and providing homes for local people is just as important. It is not rocket science to understand that when a community has seen 50 or 100 percent population increase – when northern cities have gone through active depopulation over the past 50 years – people get fed up

There are currently no large northern cities declining in population. The only places declining according from 2010 to 2020 population estimates are:

Barrow-in-Furness: 69,429; 66,726; down 3.9%

Copeland: 70,629; 68,041; down 3.7%

Blackpool: 142,753, 138,381; down 3.1%

Scarborough: 109,014; 108,737; down 0.3%

Isles of Scilly 2,228; 2,226; down 0.1%

All but one of these are seaside towns, three have narrow coastal strips on edges of national parks.

Go to any Northern Town bar perhaps Liverpool and you will find they simply don’t have enough land in their boundaries to meet all their needs, and often even more constrained, national parks, AONB, moorland etc. ITs simply a myth that you can solve the isle of wights problems in areas with declining populations – like errr the Scilly Isles.