Number of EU citizens living in Doncaster has risen by 7,000 since Brexit, figures reveal

The number of EU citizens living in the area has risen by around 7,000 since the referendum held in June 2016, according to the latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics.

Data shows that the number of EU migrants living in the area rose from 14,000 in 2016 to 21,000 in June.

This increase is much greater than across the UK, where the number of Europeans rose by nine per cent in two years on average.

The greatest rise was among EU migrants from Romania and Bulgaria, with an estimated 200 per cent increase in two years. European citizens accounted for seven per cent of Doncaster's total population, compared with an average of 5.7 per cent for the United Kingdom.

The number of migrants from non-EU countries living in Doncaster dropped, from 5,000 in 2016 to 3,000 in June.

The estimates are based on the Annual Population Survey (APS). They count EU citizens living at private addresses and students in halls of residence whose parents live in the UK. Students with parents living abroad or migrants living at communal establishments, like hotels or hostels, are excluded. All the numbers were rounded by the ONS to nearest thousand.

Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford said: 'The number of EU citizens living in the UK has increased since the referendum, but the pace of change is much slower than in the past. This is because fewer EU citizens are choosing to come to the UK and more are leaving. The UK has become a less attractive destination.

"Most EU citizens come to the UK for work, and the falling value of the pound means that what they can earn here is now worth less than it was a couple of years ago. The political and economic uncertainty of Brexit may also play a role.'