With the Referendum on EU membership filling the column inches, our households can concentrate
on something European that doesn’t involve party political broadcasts or politician’s
treating us all like children – the Euro 2016 Football Tournament. Dartford
is home to all different backgrounds and nationalities so if you're not lucky
enough to be jetting off to France for the UEFA Euro 2016 football tournament,
have no fear! For a bit of fun (although
there is a serious side to this – you know there would be with me!) I have taken a look at which European people live in Dartford
so I know who to soak up the best atmosphere with!
During my research some interesting numbers appear. Going into
the Euro 2016 tournament, France were 3/1 favourite’s, then Germany 7/2, third
Spain 11/2, then England 9/1, Italy 16/1, Poland 50/1, Romania and Wales at
100/1, Ireland at 150/1 and Northern Ireland 500/1 (although Leicester were 5000/1 at the start of last
season).
Of the 103,200 residents of
the Dartford Constituency for Westminster, of the Home Nations going into the
competition, 90,406 of them are from England, 497 from Wales, 259 from Northern
Ireland and 673 from Ireland, although I do feel sorry for the 755 Scots who
didn’t get into the finals. Now interestingly, looking at the Mainland Europeans
residents in the Dartford Constituency, it might not surprise you that they
make up 3.14% of the population as a whole in the Westminster area.
However, even more fascinating,
of those 3.14% European’s residents, 1.04% are from Western Europe because EU residents
from Eastern Europe - i.e. the Accession
Countries to the EU between 2003 to 2007 (Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia,
Bulgaria and Romania) - only make up 2.10% of the population of the Dartford
Constituency.
Broken down into the relevant
football teams, there are in the Dartford Constituency …
149 French people
335 Germans
179 Italians
81 Spanish
1,069 Poles
121 Romanians
… I feel sorry for the Spanish football supporters in Dartford!
But
what does this have to do with the Dartford property market? Quite a lot in
fact. Many
of these European people were economic migrants, especially those from Eastern
Europe. A lot of people’s
concerns over migration are exaggerated as this EU migration has acted to fill
gaps in skills and labour supply during growth periods of the mid 2000’s and
subsequently over the last five years in Dartford, EU migrants have done little
to displace native workers but do the jobs us Brits don’t often want to do. There
is no preferential treatment for council housing in Dartford, so EU migrants
have in fact increased demand for privately rented accommodation in Dartford. This has meant, as demand for housing in Dartford has remained strong, Dartford landlords have continued to buy properties to rent out to keep up with this demand. Therefore, the value of every homeowner’s property in Dartford has been kept high because of the demand from these Dartford landlords buying starter homes to rent out, releasing existing homeowners to go up the property ladder – benefiting everyone in the chain.
However, rents have remained relatively subdued, in Dartford rents are only 20.1% higher than they were in 2005, not bad when you consider we have had 38.52% inflation in the UK economy as a whole over the same 11 years.
EU migration has meant existing homeowners, landlords and the economy as a whole in Dartford (and the UK) have benefitted from better economic conditions, property prices not slumping whilst rents have been kept in check by wage inflation.
Now I wonder who will win the footy? Back to the TV!
