CIUDAD QUESADA is a town built for leisure, and little else. At three o’clock on a Friday afternoon, activity can mostly be found on the terraces of pubs along the main drag. Up the hill, at the local bowls club, members decompress after a top-of-the-table clash against a local rival. One of their number, Tony Goddard, an amiable former construction manager, pauses while drinking whisky and gestures to the sun. “That’s why we’re here!”

For decades, the lure of blue skies, cheap living and good food have drawn British pensioners to the continent. Pinning down precise numbers is difficult, but Britain’s Department for Work and Pensions says that around 340,000 people living in the European Union draw British pensions (this excludes Ireland, where another 135,000 are based). Many end up in towns-cum-retirement-communities dotted along the Mediterranean coast, like Quesada, which sits on Spain’s Costa Blanca. A common architectural style—think Roman columns and whitewashed porticos—was once described by J.G. Ballard, a British novelist, as “apparently imported from Las Vegas after a hotel clearance sale”. One local recounts the pitch when he moved out in the late 1980s: “Buy a castle in Spain” for just a few thousand pounds.

Yet the pitch is no longer so alluring. Despite a greying population, the growth in the number of British retirees in Europe is slowing. In 2005 the number drawing a British pension in the four main continental destinations (France, Italy, Spain and Germany) grew by 8%; by 2010 the growth rate had fallen to 4.8%; last year it was 0.9% (see chart). Other measures also point to a recent fall. On present trends, 2018 could be the year that the population of British pensioners on the continent begins to decline.

Economic factors are the main reason for the slowdown. In the boom years, from the mid-1990s to 2007, the strong British economy and a growing industry dedicated to helping oldsters move abroad allowed “people to sign up to a lifestyle that had previously been the preserve of Mick Jagger in Mustique”, recalls Andy Bridge, managing director of A Place in the Sun, a publishing and events company linked to a daytime television programme of the same name. Then economies across the Mediterranean stalled, destroying local property markets. Since 2008 the average price of a house in Spain has fallen by a third. Concrete skeletons litter the country’s southern coast, a memory of projects abandoned during the crash. Many expat Britons fell into negative equity and were unable to escape back home—a poor advertisement for those considering a move. Moreover, weak European economies were hardly an enticing prospect for those who wanted to continue to work part-time. On the Costa Blanca many British pensioners take up work, some informally, after finding that their savings do not go as far as expected, says Andy Ormiston, a local Scottish resident. Changes to the British economy also had an impact. Rising property prices have stopped youngsters flying the nest: according to the Office for National Statistics, 26% of 20- to 34-year-olds now live at home, up from 21% in 1996. This has cramped the wanderlust of their parents. In the years after the financial crisis, Britons thinking of a move unsurprisingly grew more cautious. “Nowadays you have a better-informed buyer who is clearer on what they want, what they can afford and why they are moving abroad,” says Mr Bridge. Numbers are growing faster in France than Spain, perhaps suggesting that the average new expat is better off than before. In a poll by YouGov for HSBC’s expat-banking division, two-thirds of British pensioners in Spain cited the lower cost of living as a reason for their move, compared with only a fifth of those in France, who were keener on the culture and lifestyle.

Brexit has not yet had a dramatic impact on pensioners’ migration patterns. On the one hand, some have been put off moving abroad by the depreciation of the pound, which is worth 14% less against the euro than it was the day before the 2016 referendum. On the other, some people have brought forward plans to emigrate so that they can be grandfathered into whatever system emerges after Brexit, says Roger Boaden of Expat Citizen Rights in EU, a campaign group registered in France.

The long-term impact could be more pronounced. Much depends on Britain’s exit talks with the EU. A deal provisionally agreed on December 15th would guarantee expat British citizens the right to remain. Yet pensioners, who may have seen little reason to maintain up-to-date paperwork, could face problems proving their residential history. A report from the Migration Policy Institute Europe, a think-tank in Brussels, argues that “regardless of what happens with the deal on citizens’ rights, there is likely to be a massive increase in UK nationals who find themselves in legal limbo.” It is possible that many will end up undocumented, with reduced access to services, or that they will move back to Britain in droves, reckons Meghan Benton, the report’s author.

Spanish locals on the Costa Blanca are unfussed by the prospect of fewer Britons arriving, confident that other Europeans will make up the numbers (there has been a recent influx of Russians, for instance). The mood at the Quesada Bowls Club is similarly sanguine. It is ultimately quite simple, reckons one member: “They can’t afford to be kicking us out.” Perhaps. But consternation about the rights of incomers could nevertheless reduce the pull of a retirement in the sun—a key selling point of which is, after all, avoiding the stresses and strains of life back home.