Influx of new Highlanders puts an end to slump in population

azzuri

see - http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/61949.html

Influx of new Highlanders puts an end to slump in population

THE demographic timebomb that threatened to leave the Highlands with a declining and ageing population is being defused.

A summit being held in Inverness tomorrow by public agencies will be told there has been an influx of new Highlanders, a mix of Eastern Europeans and incomers from south of the border.

The change is so dramatic that, after English and Gaelic, Polish and German are now the most common languages among school pupils in the Highlands.

Just two years ago, the first Highland population summit was convened amid fears of a demographic crisis.

Official projections held then that the number of young people aged 14 or under in the Highlands would fall by almost 50% by 2018, while there would be a 44% increase in the number of over-75s in the area. This would produce a huge age imbalance within the population which overall would be falling by 800 a year.

However, research to be presented tomorrow shows a different picture. In the middle of last year the population in the area covered by the Highland Council, far from falling, stood at 213,590. This was some 2250 more than the estimates of the previous year and 4670 more than at the time of the census in 2001.

According to figures released last month by the General Registers Office for Scotland, over the past year Highland has had the largest population increase of all Scottish local authorities. The 1.1% rise ranks it alongside Aberdeenshire and Falkirk.

Since 2004, it is estimated that there are 90 fewer 0-15 year-olds, 1471 more 16-64 year-olds and 869 more people aged 65 or over in the Highland area.

While there is concern at the continued decline in young people and children, with deaths still outweighing births, there are more people coming to stay in the Highlands now than are leaving.

From 2002-2004 there was a net gain from England and Wales of 2406 each year, with the biggest gain in the 35-39 age group. Meanwhile, despite the spectre of English pensioners overwhelming some Highland communities, the smallest gains overall have been in the retired population.

There have also been claims that the Polish population in the Highlands is now 5000.

However, according to Carron McDiarmid, Highland Council's head of policy: "Nobody knows the true number. The best information we have comes from National Insurance registrations, although they could under- report the figure because they only count the worker registering, not any additional family.

"Equally, they could inflate the figure. When somebody registers, they have that number for ever even if they leave."

The registrations did show that inward migration to the Highland area increased from 225 in 2001 to 3260 in 2005, with 1305 or 40% coming from the European accession states.

Ms McDiarmid added: "We also know that around 40% of those coming to the Highlands come to Inverness."

Across the whole Highlands and Islands there were over 3000 inward migrants in 2005/2006, with 69% coming from Poland. Most (82%) were aged 18 to 34.

It comes as it is estimated up to 350,000 Poles have arrived in the UK over the past two years. Experts say it is one of the biggest influxes of a population ever seen in Britain.

Meanwhile, in this current year some 627 pupils in Highland schools do not have English as their first language.

German is the most common alternative with 62 pupils, followed by Polish (58 ); Bengali (52); Cantonese (42); and French (40).

The summit is to help public agencies design services, from housing to health care, to meet the demands of their now growing and increasingly diverse community.

David Alston, chairman of the Highland Council's renewing democracy committee, initiated the call for the first Highland population summit.

He said: "Our future is as one Highlands with many cultures and the success of the twenty-first-century Highlands will be built on the welcome we extend to the strangers who will become our new neighbours."

Aventinian

Wonder what the Tcheuchters will think of that...