New houses at the Harbourside
It's no secret that Irvine is undergoing something of a building boom. Grok estimates that over the last 10 years Irvine has likely seen approximately 800 to 1,200 houses built. This is made up of around 400–600 council homes, 300–500 from developers like Bellway and others, and 100–200 from smaller or housing association projects.
Assuming the number is 1,000 and each house contains around 3.5 people, that would mean another 3,500 people.
However, during this period Irvine's population has been on the slide by around 5,000. In 2016, Irvine's population was estimated at 39,517. This was from a fact-checked article in the Daily Record, probably citing council sources. However, North Ayrshire's webpage puts the present figure at 33,700. This is a massive drop of nearly 6,000 people.
Of course, while many houses are being built, some are also being destroyed, most notably the Fullarton Flats. Grok estimates that 300 to 400 houses or residential units have been demolished in the last 10 years, made up of Fullarton high flats (260–280 units), 38–78 flats or houses in Bourtreehill efforts, and potentially 10–30 more from miscellaneous demolitions.
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Fullarton Flats under demolition 2023
Even if we input this number into housing equation, there is still an increase of 750 homes with approximately 2,600 more people, yet the population trend is nearly 6,000 less.
The only explanations are:
- There are people in Irvine who are not being counted. If so who are they? Are they part of the "Boriswave," migrants allowed in under lax restrictions to "reboot" the economy after Covid?
- The number of people per home is dropping with less families and more single people living alone.
Or else (1) and (2), namely more old people living alone being cared for in their homes by more health workers imported from the Third World who have not yet been put into the population statistics!
More buildings but with less people! Really?
