This week saw the release of the ten yearly report into how many people live in England, and where they live and how they compare in terms of age.

It is probably the last time the data will be collected this way - by banging on doors and sending out leaflets. Officials are looking at cheaper options on how to track who lives where. It is believed to have cost around £1billion for this census and it could be more cost effective to collect numbers from things like GP registrations, council tax records and driving licences. 

According to the Office for National Statistics, the overall picture is that the nation is getting older and bigger. But within that picture the local numbers show big differences in how people are settled, important because the numbers will be used to influence health and social care spending.

Mendip In Numbers

In Mendip, the population size has increased by 6.2%, from around 109,300 (2011) to 116,100 in 2021. This is lower than the overall increase for England and lower than that in neighbouring B&NES which saw its population increase by 9.9%.

The data has not yet been broken down into who lives where within Mendip - with Frome certainly expected to remain the biggest of the five Mendip settlements with a population last recorded of over 26,000.

Over Mendip as a whole the district still ranks 207th for total population out of 309 local authority areas in England, maintaining the same position it held a decade ago.

As of 2021, Mendip is the 10th least densely populated of the South West's 30 local authority areas, with around one person living on each football pitch-sized area of land (which is the way the ONS compares living density).

By comparison Tower Hamlets in London has become the most densely populated local authority area in England (overtaking Islington) with the equivalent of around 112 people per pitch.

There has been an increase of 29.7% in people aged 65 years and over in Mendip, an increase of 1.0% in people aged 15 to 64 years, and a decrease of 0.6% in children aged under 15 years.

National Results

Across the nation the population has increased by 3.5 million people since 2011 - a 6.3 per cent increase.

There were 59,597,300 people living in England and Wales on 21 March 2021, the day of the national census, the largest population ever recorded.

But that signals a slower rate of growth, with the last census showing a record 7.1 per cent increase from 2001.

ONS figures also show that 51.0 per cent of the population of England and Wales is female which is a slight rise from 50.8 in 2011.

Overall, in England, there has been an increase of 20.1% in people aged 65 years and over, an increase of 3.6% in people aged 15 to 64 years, and an increase of 5.0% in children aged under 15 years.

A record 89 per cent of responses to the census were completed online - with 20 million households surveyed in total.

Added to census figures for Northern Ireland and a 2020 estimate of the Scottish population, there are now 66,966,400 people in the UK.

History

The first census of the population can be traced to 1801, but the first modern census is considered to be the survey of 1841.

In that year the main occupation was listed as "domestic servant" and that almost a quarter of a million people worked in the cotton industry.

But Frome Nub News prefers one of the census replies we saw during our research which described a young woman's occupation as " Doing just what she pleases."