WORCESTER saw its population drop by one of the highest rates in the UK.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows the UK’s population growth for the year up to June 2020 is 0.4 per cent, the lowest for two decades, with excess deaths caused by Covid cited.

A total of 67.1 million people are likely to have been living in the UK in the middle of last year, up from an estimated 66.8 million in mid-2019.

The year-on-year rise of around 284,000 is the smallest since the 12 months to mid-2001 and figures show the year to mid-2020 saw the highest number of deaths in the UK since the year to mid-1986.

However, it is the second year in a row that the number of people living in Worcester has dropped.

The population dropped 0.9 per cent last year, and 0.7 per cent the year before that.

Births in the year to June 2020 were slightly down from 1.1 per cent to 1.0 and deaths were up from 0.8 per cent of the population to 1.0 but the biggest swing came in numbers related to internal migration – people moving from one part of the UK to another.

A total of 5.2 per cent of the population moved into Worcester over the year but 6.5 per cent moved out, a net loss of 1.3 per cent that was up from a net drop of 1.0 per cent in the previous year.

Surrounding areas have seen more people move in than out with Wychavon posting a net figure of 0.2 per cent more people from internal migration, despite a decrease of 11.5 per cent fewer people moving across council borders compared to the previous year.

The trend is similar in other highly-populated areas including Birmingham, Cheltenham, Derby and Leicester.

Scott Richardson-Brown, chief executive of estate agents Andrew Grant, said the movement he has seen in the property market marries up with the data.

“Price growth has been strong nationally and across the region, five to 10 per cent is not unusual, but we have seen people moving more towards rural properties,” he said.

“Covid has demonstrated that people want a quality of life that they haven’t been able to get in town centres or flats so there has been a lot of money heading towards that idyllic, rural dream, particularly money coming from the south east.

“I would imagine people locally are looking to have that outside space for the same reason, they don’t need to be as accessible to places of work as they used to and maybe they see that as a long-term change.

“We have already seen price pressure on flats in cities because they are less desirable than they were 18 months ago.”

Worcester's drop is only eclipsed by the London borough of Lambeth (down 1.3 per cent), West Suffolk (down 1.0 per cent) and Inverclyde (down 1.0 per cent).