OUR Green Belt is under threat because, we are told, that there is not enough brownfield land (ignoring the Wirral Waters site) to meet strategic housing needs.

Wirral Council appears to be content with the Government estimate that we need to build 800 homes per annum for the next 15 years.

I thought it would be interesting to compare this projection of housing need with what actually happened since the last census in 2011.

The ONS site provides year by year population and household statistics. The net increase in population from 2011 to 2016 was 321,200 - 319,800 = 1,400 over five years or 280 per annum. Taking Wirral heads per household as 2.33 (compared with UK average 2.36) this implies a need for 120 extra homes per annum compared with the projection of 800.

Suddenly, after 2016 forecasted housing demand rate accelerated by a factor of 6.66. An ageing population can explain a little of this. The rest can only be due to some remarkable assumptions about changes in the fortunes of the Wirral economy over the next 15 years! Does the council have some secret plan to transform our fortunes? Why should we accept these fantasy forecasts after decades of stagnation and failed promises? Why is our council timidly accepting the Conservative Government’s housing forecasts? Quo bono?

By the way, Wirral’s population in 1996 was 322,700 compared with 322,000 in 2018.

Professor D P Gregg (retired) by email.