Times letters: Curbing growth of our overcrowded island

Sir, The position on population growth is even more dire than portrayed by Clare Foges (“Let’s be honest about our overcrowded island”, Aug 5). Officially projected population growth depends on assumed net migration of 190,000 a year. The actual average over the past five years was 260,000. That would take the UK population to nearly 80 million by 2040. In the official projection, 79 per cent of growth from 2018 is down to migrants and their children. In fact we have been there for the past 20 years. Migration is the main source of household growth. More than 60 per cent of additional households each year have a “head” born outside the UK. Who knows what will happen next given Brexit, Covid-19, AI and the