Can we cope with 70 million people in Britain?

Revised projections for the UK populationLots of coverage today of the revised population projections produced by the Office for National Statistics. The number crunchers have decided that ‘The UK population is projected to increase by 4.4 million by 2016. This increase is equivalent to an average annual rate of growth of 0.7 per cent. If past trends continue, the population will continue to grow, reaching 71 million by 2031. This is due to natural increase (more births than deaths) and because it is assumed there will be more immigrants than emigrants (a net inward flow of migrants).’There is just so much uncertainty about any population projections so far into the future! In particular net migration flows are sensitive to changes in migration policy and the economic growth and development of countries around the world. Can a country such as the UK cope with a population in excess of 71 million? Evan Davis (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/evandavis/2007/10/a_crowded_island.html) argues that“Most people hugely underestimate the amount of “empty space” we have in our country. Fly over the UK, and you see that human settlement does not fill up the UK at all. It accounts for something of the order of 15 per cent of the landmass. So physically, we could probably fit another ten million people in - or 16 per cent of the population - without toppling into the sea.”Follow up the story with this selection of stories:The Independent: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article3090323.eceThe Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/23/npopulation123.xml BBC news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7057765.stm