26 May 2016
The Borough Council has quietly given up on releasing the next version of Borough plan any time soon. Instead it is just planning to release yet another “timetable” at the June Cabinet meeting.
the office of national statistics produced its revised population forecast for every local authority area for the 25 years between 2014 and 2039.
The continued decline in employment prospects and significant loss of younger population has resulted in a significant reduction in the borough’s expected growth. The expected population in 2031 has been reduced to 134,890, a drop of 4,100 on the previous 2012-based ONS projection. This is around 6,800 less than projection used for 2015 version of the borough plan.
The farcical borough plan should have been produced and adopted by July 2010. The proposed plan is now expected to cover the period from 2011 to 2031. It is already running around 8 years late.
Detailed modelling used for the NBBC borough plan was obtained from Coventry City Council. It shows two population projections for the borough one based on the ONS 2012 projection and one based on rapid employment growth within the borough. Both had been adjusted for actual population changes up to 2014 but not for ongoing lower levels of growth.
| Projected 2031 population | Population growth | Housing need | |
| ONS 2012 based projection | 139,000 | 13,591 | 6,500-8,900 |
| SHMA (GL Hearn) employment growth | 141,724 | 16,315 | 9,612 |
| SHMA (GL HEARN) demographic | 137,929 | 12,520 | 8,212 |
ONS 2014 based projection |
134,890 |
9,481 |
4,700-6,500 |
Using the latest ONS population projections for the Borough would reduce increase in Households to between 4,700 and 6,500 over the 20-year period.
On the 23rd June the ONS will be releasing population estimates for 2015. These are likely to again reduce the housing requirement going forward.
The latest ONS release can be found HERE.
Graph of the 2012 and 2014 ONS population projections (Dark Blue and Pink squares) as well as projections used by GL Hearn to produce the Strategic Housing Market Assessment based on modified demographics (green triangles) and well above average employment growth (orange triangles).
Source ONS and FOIA to Coventry City Council.
Sign up for updates
Find out more
