Herefordshire is growing more slowly according to UK Census

Newly published details from last year’s UK Census shows some striking facts about Herefordshire’s population.

Newly published details from last year’s UK Census shows some striking facts about Herefordshire’s population.

1. Herefordshire is mostly British-born

The census shows that 91.4 per cent of people in Herefordshire were born in the UK, compared with the national figure for England and Wales of 83.2 per cent.

Of those born elsewhere, 5.4 per cent were born in other European countries, half in the so-called “EU8” of mostly Eastern European countries, principally Poland. A further 1.4 per cent were born in Asia and the Middle East.

Within the “UK-born” figure, 5.3 per cent were born in Wales.

Those who took up residence in Herefordshire from outside the UK within the previous decade made up 3.7 per cent of the county’s population.

2. Herefordshire is growing more slowly than the rest of England and Wales

Herefordshire’s resident population was 187,100 in 2021, up 2 per cent on the 2011 figure. England and Wales as a whole grew by 6.6 per cent over the same period, to now stand at 59.6 million.

3. There are areas of deprivation, but they are not extreme

The areas of the county with the highest deprivation are Hereford Central, Hereford South West and Leominster South. In each, 0.4 per cent of households are classed as having all four forms of deprivation recorded by the census.

(These are: whether any household member is either unemployed or long-term sick; whether no household member has at least a Level 2 education; whether anyone in the household has “bad” or “very bad” health or has a long-term health problem; and whether the household is either overcrowded, is shared, or has no central heating.)

For comparison, the figure for the whole of Birmingham is also 0.4 per cent.

4. Hereford South West is the “youngest” area of the county

With an average age of 48 compared to 40 for the whole of England and Wales, Herefordshire is a relatively “old” county. But nearly a quarter (23.7 per cent) of Hereford South West’s population is aged 15 or under, with just 13.3 per cent aged 65 or over.

5. …and Colwall is the oldest

By contrast, in Colwall, Cradley & Wellington Heath, the census area nearest Malvern, 33.5 per cent, or more than one in three of the population, are aged 65 or over.