1 Population and Migration

Issues and Priorities

  • The South West has a higher proportion of its population in rural areas than any other English region. Nevertheless, nearly two thirds of the region’s population live in towns of more than 10,000 people.
  • The South West’s population has grown faster than any other region over the last 20 years.
  • The region’s growth in the last 10 years has been almost entirely the result of migration, as the region has experienced more deaths than births in each year apart form the last.
  • The growing population in the South West means that, other things being equal, the region will have an increasing impact on climate change. However, because growth results almost entirely from migration there is an opportunity for the region to adopt high environmental standards that mean those moving to the region may have a lower impact than in their place of origin.
  • There is a clear positive relationship between the ‘ rurality’ of an area and the population growth, with large urban areas growing by 6.9% over the last 20 years and most rural areas growing by 18.1%.