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Edition 270
Friday 6th May 2016
THE BRITS GO MISSING Costa Blanca And Murcia Padrón Collapse
T
he official British population in Alicante Province is down to under 14 thousand according to the latest government figures based on the local padrón registrations. 131 thousand British residents were on council padróns three years ago, but figures have collapsed due to an apparent combination of people not renewing the document as well as those who are quitting Spain to return to the UK. The country’s overall population fell for the fourth successive year mainly down to the increasing number of Spaniards moving abroad as well as fewer foreign residents in the country. At the start of 2016, there were nearly 100 thousand fewer residents in Spain than a year earlier, according to figures issued by the National Statistics Institute. The registered resident population of Spain is currently 46.5 million, a 0.2 percent decrease in the annual rate with nearly 10 percent of residents being non-Spaniards. Last year, for the first time since the 1930s, Spain recorded more deaths than births in the first half of 2015, according to the INE figures which are based on the registration of residents known as the municipal padrón. Foreigners, who represent 9.9 percent of the registered population, fell
BY ALEX TRELINSKI
THE COURIER WOW GUIDE by over 128 thousand, with the biggest reduction being amongst those people from the UK, Germany, and Ecuador. Alicante Province has "lost" 23 thousand residents in the last year, with population levels down to those of 2007, officially standing at 1.83 million people. This change was totally down to 25 and a half thousand foreign residents leaving the area last year with the statistics officially putting British residents in the Province at just 13,750, with significant falls amongst other people from EU countries. There were slight increases for Russian and Ukrainian residents last year. The UK fall is dramatic based on the padrón returns. The official figures
for Alicante Province showed a figure of 130 thousand registered British residents in 2013, collapsing to 91 thousand the following year, and now just under 14 thousand. Observers believe that the UK fall, along with that of other EU nationals in recent years is not down to people just leaving but is also down to changes made in 2013 over how councils report their population statistics to Madrid as well as people who registered initially on a padrón when they bought their property now not renewing their documentation. This has been despite campaigns from the British Embassy and local councils to get people registered on the padrón, which amongst other things gives them the right to vote in local elec-
tions and provides additional funding for the authorities based on their population. Torrevieja council has just launched a campaign sending letters to every address which has not had its padrón renewed over the last five years. The Murcia region had a marginal fall of 0.2 percent taking the population level to 1.46 million, of which 20 thousand were foreign nationals accounting for 14 percent of the area's residents. That means that Murcia’s has suffered its first population drop since the current system of statistics was introduced in 1998, with around seven and a half thousand foreigners quitting the area in 2015. The falls amongst British residences has mirrored the returns in Alicante Province.