London exodus hits record high as new figures reveal that some 340,498 people moved out of the capital last year.

Daily Mail (h/t Terry D) Londoners are leaving the capital in record numbers and the city is now the only region in England were more people are leaving than arriving, official figures show.

The data released by the Office for National Statistics revealed 340,498 people left London in 2018 to live in other parts of the UK, an increase of 11 per cent on the previous year. The exodus marks the highest rate of people leaving London since the ONS began collecting data in 2012.

In 2017, 336,010 people left the city, up from 291,630 in 2016. And between 2012 – where departures were 255,140 – and 2016, outward migration rose by 36,490. Only migration into London from other parts of the world is keeping the population steady.

The capital’s crime rates may be a factor in peoples’ decision to leave for safer parts of the country. Since the start of the year, there have been 64 murders in the capital, with the latest shocking death occurring last night, when a pregnant woman was stabbed to death.

And last weekend, four people were killed with knives within four days in London, while earlier this week Oasis’s frontman Liam Gallagher blamed London mayor Sadiq Khan for the knife-crime epidemic. He said: ‘Every time you wake up in the morning, there’s some 16-year-old kid been knifed to death.