Capital gains: Population of London to reach 9m by 2020 as city swells by a million in less than a decade



The number of people living in London is expected to grow by more than a million people in less than 10 years, an official analysis said yesterday.



Its population will reach more than nine million by 2020 - an increase of 14 per cent in a decade - pushed up by immigration and rising birthrates.

And in a further decade London will be home to more than 10 million people as it continues to draw in migrants and generate young families.



Metropolis: London is on course to join Moscow as the only other European city with more than nine million residents

The scale of the population growth that the nation’s capital can expect was set out by the Office for National Statistics in new regional population projections.

At present no city in Europe except Moscow has more than nine million people. Only 11 in the world have more than 10 million, all of them in Asia except Sao Paulo in Brazil.

London, with a headcount in 2010 of just under eight million people, is currently around the same size as Lagos in Nigeria and has around 200,000 fewer people than New York.

The rapid increase in population for London will come alongside a major growth in numbers across the southern half of England, according to the ONS projections. Both eastern England and the South East can expect their populations to expand by 600,000 for each region over the next decade.

Rapid population growth - the country is expected to reach the landmark total of 70 million in 2027 - is already behind a series of increasingly divisive political controversies. David Cameron has this week backed the Coalition’s plans to speed up the planning system to encourage development - which will provide new housing and services required for the rapidly increasing numbers who will need them.

Resources: Growing demand for water will be a concern as drier regions suffer drought, as seen at the half-empty Bewl Water Reservoir in Kent

The threat of drought this summer has also underlined the growing demand for water in the driest regions of the country.

The MigrationWatch pressure group called on London mayoral candidates Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone to bring the effects of immigration into their campaigns in advance of what looks like a tightly-contested election in May.

Its chief Sir Andrew Green said: ‘These figures underline the massive impact of immigration on London. I hope the candidates for mayor will take them into account when they ask for the votes of Londoners. Both Mr Johnson and Mr Livingstone are trying to avoid the subject.’ Rising rents and pressure on housing have however influenced the policies of both candidates.

The ONS projections show that London, estimated to have a 2010 population of 7.95 million, will grow to 9.083 million in 2020 and hit 10 million at the end of 2030.

Officials said the increase was driven mainly by natural change - the greater number of births than deaths - than by immigration. Migration will account less than a fifth of the growth, they said.

‘Although London is a destination for many people migrating to live and work both from other regions and internationally, there are also large numbers of people who migrate out of London, which is why growth due to migration is projected to be just 2.5 per cent,’ the ONS said.

However the high birthrates in London that are expected to drive up population fast are themselves driven by immigration. The most recent analysis supplied to MPs by the ONS say that two out of three babies born in London have at least one parent who was born abroad.

The ONS population projections are based on the assumption that in future decades net migration - the number of people added to the population each year after both immigration and emigration are taken into account - will run at 200,000 people a year.