Leading Article: Lure of the Fens

THE POPULATION of Cambridgeshire will grow by a quarter in 25 years, according to government statisticians. Large increases are also forecast for Dorset, Bedfordshire and West Sussex, while the urban areas of the North and West Midlands will decline.

These dramatic movements represent a reversal of the trends of the second half of the 19th century, when these rural areas were deep in agricultural depression and saw their populations move to the industrial cities of the North and Midlands - and, of course, London.

The capital remains the fixed point of population change: the likely changes over the next quarter-century radiate from it in a process that could be described as extreme suburbanisation, or an extension of the Home Counties. The new country-dwellers are not "rural", but an urban middle class in search of a better quality of life. They are freed from the need to live in London by improved transport and communications - even as far afield as Dorset - and repelled from the cities by poor schools and the fear of crime. The premium remains highest on the green bits nearer to London - hence Cambridgeshire being top of the list, despite its flatness.

Indeed, with the advent of global warming, Cambridgeshire may become the Florida of 21st-century Britain: 25 years ago, Americans thought Miami was a retirement home surrounded by swamp. And there are not even any alligators in the ditches of the Fens.