Leicester and Luton among 14 areas where white population now in minority

Some 14 local authorities recorded more than half of their usual residents as identifying with an ethnic group other than white.

The Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham (Jacob King/PA) (PA Archive)

Leicester, Luton and Birmingham are among the areas of England where people identifying as white now form a minority of the population, census data shows.

Some 14 local authorities recorded more than half of their usual residents as identifying with an ethnic group other than white, with the highest proportion in the London boroughs of Newham (69.2%), Brent (65.4%) and Redbridge (65.2%).

Outside London the highest non-white proportion is in Slough in Berkshire (64.0%), followed by Leicester (59.1%), Luton (54.8%) and Birmingham (51.4%).

The new figures, which have been published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), represent a snapshot of ethnicity of the resident population on the day of the last census, March 21 2021.

The other seven areas with a non-white population above 50% are all in London: Harrow (63.5%), Tower Hamlets (60.6%), Ealing (56.8%), Hounslow (55.9%), Barking & Dagenham (55.1%), Hillingdon (51.8%) and Croydon (51.6%).

Redbridge is the local authority with the highest proportion of people identifying as Asian (47.3%), followed by Slough (46.7%) and Harrow (45.2%).

After Slough, the areas outside London with the highest figures for people identifying as Asian are Leicester (43.4%), Luton (37.0%) and Blackburn with Darwen (35.7%).

Lewisham is the local authority with the highest proportion of people identifying as black (26.8%), followed by Southwark (25.1%) and Lambeth (24.0%), all of which are in London.

The authority outside London with the the highest percentage of people identifying as black is Manchester (11.9%), followed by Thurrock (also 11.9%), Birmingham (11.0%) and Dartford (10.5%).