The boom in the housing market is something that has featured regularly in the news over the past few years. Most of us are aware, from our everyday experience, of new housing developments springing up everywhere. It therefore comes as no surprise to examine the statistics for the number of households and find an increase. What is perhaps surprising, is the extent of that increase in the absence of any population growth. My former employer Dumfries & Galloway in the rural south west of Scotland is a case in point. Despite the constant theme of rural depopulation and the decline of agriculture, over the period April 1999 to April 2003, every single one of the 47 electoral wards in the region showed a rise in the number of households. In some cases, the increase was marginal - at under 1%. In others, however, the four year period showed sizeable increases in the number of households, in excess of 10% in four of the 47 wards, with the highest being almost 12.4%.
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