Britain will need 2 mn new homes for immigrants

LONDON - Britain will need more than two million new homes over the next 25 years to cope with immigration, a media report said Saturday.

Official figures released Friday showed that Britain will have to provide homes for 83,000 migrant families a year if the influx continues at the current rate, reports Daily Mail.

Over a third of all the new houses and flats made available between now and the mid-2030s will be needed for individuals and families coming to Britain from abroad, figures showed.

At least 600,000 of these will have to be in the most overcrowded parts of the country, London and the South-East.

“Population growth is the main driver of household growth, accounting for nearly three-quarters of the increase in households between 2008 and 2033,” said a spokesman of the Communities Department.

Around two-thirds of population growth is directly brought about by immigration. Immigration pressure groups accused officials of trying to underplay the effect of the flow of people into the country on new housebuilding.

Home Office ministers have capped numbers of visas for workers from outside Europe and are moving on to try to reduce the record rate at which students, many of them thought to be disguised economic migrants, are arriving in Britain.

The Office for National Statistics recorded 211,000 foreign students coming into the country last year.

The decline of marriage and the rise of cohabitation have resulted in much higher numbers of single parents and separated fathers, and older people increasingly live alone.