The sub-region of West Yorkshire covers an area of 2,023km2, 13% of Yorkshire and Humber’s 15,512km2. West Yorkshire is broken down into five metropolitan district councils, Bradford, Calderdale, Leeds, Kirklees and Wakefield. To the west it neighbours the North West region and to the south the East Midlands region. Of its five component districts Leeds at 550km2 constitutes 27% of the total area, Kirklees at 407km2, 20% and Bradford, Calderdale and Wakefield all of similar size comprise the rest.

The West Yorkshire sub-region contains the Cities of Bradford and Leeds - the region’s financial centre. The principal towns of Huddersfield, Halifax, Dewsbury, Wetherby, Brighouse and Wakefield are also located within West Yorkshire. Within West Yorkshire, 475km2 or 23.5% of the region is deemed urban area.

West Yorkshire contains the River Aire, River Calder and River Went. The sub-region is located centrally within the country and has a good transport infrastructure with the M62 Motorway bisecting the sub-region from East to West. Adjoining the M62 is the M606 to Bradford, M621 to Leeds, and the M1 linking West Yorkshire to the North and South. The sub-region also contains the A629, A660, A58, A64, A63 and A1 trunk roads, which are important commuter roads and linking the to other settlements within the region.

Administrative Boundaries

The West Yorkshire Sub-Region contains the five metropolitan district councils of Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield and is broken down into 126 wards: Calderdale contains 18; Bradford, 30; Kirklees, 24; Leeds, 33 and Wakefield, 21. In terms of Parliamentary constituency there are 23 within West Yorkshire, Calderdale has two, Bradford has five, Leeds has eight, Wakefield has three, Kirklees has four and one is shared between Kirklees and Wakefield. There are also 94 Parishes with Leeds and Wakefield constituting the majority with 35 and 32 respectively.

West Yorkshire contains 6,902 Census Output Areas and 1381 of the new lower Super Output Areas, the new statistical geographies created for the 2001 Census. Of the 6,902 Census Output Areas, 1409 make up Leeds Urban Area and 764 Bradford Urban Area.

Figure 1.1: Administrative boundaries and major settlements within West Yorkshire

Geography	Size (Km2)	Districts	Wards	Parliamentary Constituencies	Parishes	Super Output Areas
West Yorkshire	2,023	5	126	23	94	1,381
Yorkshire	15,512	21	496	56	1,208	3,293
England	132,520	353	7,963	529	10,686	32,482

Population Structure

The district of West Yorkshire is the most populated sub-region within Yorkshire and Humber, with over 2,000,000 people living in the 854,040 households. West Yorkshire accounts for 41.9% of the 4,982,5030 Yorkshire and Humber population, but only for 13% of the landmass. The population of west Yorkshire is concentrated in Leeds with 34% and in Bradford with 23% of the population. When analysed more locally at ward level the population spread is quite pronounced with 25.5% of the population living within 2.8% of the West Yorkshire district. As would be expected this is clustered around the towns of Bradford, Leeds, Halifax, Huddersfield and Wakefield.

The 2001 Census identified 854,040 within West Yorkshire, of these 573,434 are owner-occupied and the average number of persons per household is 2.4. The average population density across West Yorkshire is 1029.5 people/km2, considerably higher than the Yorkshire and Humber and England average of 320 and 374 people/km2 respectively. Of the districts within West Yorkshire, Bradford and Leeds have the highest population density, with both districts having a density over 1290 people/km2. In contrast Calderdale is the least populated district with a density of only 531 people per km2.

Figure 1.2 illustrates the spread of the population within the district of West Yorkshire. The population density of the district ranges from 6.8 people/km2 to over 85,000 people/km2. Of the 6,902 Census Output Areas (COA) within West Yorkshire, 5,947 have a population density of over 1,000 people/km2. There are 1,605 COAs with a population density of over 6,500 people/km2 and 519 COAs with a population density of over 10,000 – these are clustered around the edge of the Leeds, Bradford, Halifax and Huddersfield. 6,774 of the COAs or 1143km2 (56%) of the district is above 100 people/km2 – containing 2,042,970 people. In contrast 128 of the COAs are below 100 people/km2 – this corresponds to 886km2 or 44% of the district below 100 people/km2 – containing only 36,241 people

Figure 1.2: The population density (people per km2) of West Yorkshire Sub-Region

Source: Office for National Statistics, Census 2001. Crown Copyright 2004

Since 1998, (the Advancing Together baseline) the population in West Yorkshire has increased by 0.97%. This is slightly above the regional rise of 0.66%, which was the third lowest regional population increase over the 1998 to 2002 period. In comparison to the other regions West Yorkshire has the second highest population increase, behind North Yorkshire’s increase of 2.8%

The districts within West Yorkshire have varying population changes, Bradford with 1.67% has had the greatest population increase and Leeds with 0.3% the lowest. None of the districts within West Yorkshire display a population decline, which is in contrast to many large urban areas. The 2001 Census figures for West Yorkshire show that the population has increased by 17,500 people since the 1991 census. West Yorkshire now has a population of 2,079,211, an increase of 0.8% since the 1991 Census.

The population of the Yorkshire and Humber region is expected to rise by 1.53% to 5,072,256 people by 2016 (from 2004). It is forecast that West Yorkshire will have a population increase of 2.2%, again second to North Yorkshire.

Figure 1.3: Percentage change by age band across West Yorkshire, including the regional and England average between 1998 and 2002

As identified, there has been a slight population increase within West Yorkshire. When the population change is broken down by age, West Yorkshire generally follows the regional and national trend (see Figure 1.3), although it has a higher rate of change within certain age bands. Between 1998 and 2002 there is an obvious pattern of population increase in four age groups within West Yorkshire, with the largest being an 18% increase in the 55 to 59 age band, which is only 1% less than the regional and national rates. There was also a population increase in all age bands between 35 and 44; in the 35 to 39 age band West Yorkshire had a 3.8% increase in comparison to the regional (3.6%) and national (7.1%) increases. This trend continues into the 40 to 44 age group with the national rate nearly 3% higher than West Yorkshire.

The has also been an increase in all age bands from 10 to 24, with West Yorkshire mirroring the regional and national trends, but over 2% higher than the national rate in the 15 to 19 and 20 to 24 age bands. In the 80 to 84 age band there has been a population rise of 15.8%, West Yorkshire continues to show an increase in the 85 and over category although slightly less than the other geographies.

There was a decrease in population in the age bands up to nine years old in comparison to 1998, with a slightly higher decline than the regional and national rates in all categories above 1 year old. In the under one category West Yorkshire had a population decrease of 6.6%, in comparison to the regional and national decreases of 7.3% and 6.7% respectively. The largest decline in population was in the 25 to 29 age band with a decline of 12%. As shown in Figure 1.3, West Yorkshire had smaller decline than the regional (17%) rate, but higher than the national (10%) rate.

Figure 1.4 Population pyramid showing the 2001 population structure of the district of West Yorkshire against the UK average

In 2002, West Yorkshire had a gender split of 1,013,094 males and 1,076,118 females, 48.5% and 51.5% respectively. This generally follows the same trend throughout the region’s districts when analysed as a percentage of total population, but alters substantially when broken down by age, with females constituting 59% of the 65 and over age group and 67% of the over 80 age group. Figure 1.4 illustrates the population structure of West Yorkshire district, which mirrors that of the UK population structure. Over 15% of the West Yorkshire population is 65 and over, this relates to the large increase since 1998 in those over 80. This trend towards an ageing population looks certain to continue, with 35% of the population within the 30 to 54 age band and only 26% under 20.

Ethnicity, Nationality and Religion

The 2001 Census identifies a predominantly white make up of 88.6% within West Yorkshire. This is considerably lower than the regional rate of 93.5% and England and Wales rate of 91.3%. The relatively low proportion (1,842,813) of white ethnic groups means West Yorkshire has the highest proportion of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups of all sub-regions, 5% higher than South Yorkshire and 10% higher than North Yorkshire and the Humber. Of the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Population, Pakistani is the largest group (122,210) within the district at 5.9%, compared to 3% and 1.4% for Yorkshire and England respectively.

In terms of nationality, the 2001 Census shows that 1,927,075 or 92.7% of West Yorkshire’s population was born in the UK, compared to the regional rate of 95.7% and national rate of 91.1%. West Yorkshire has the lowest proportion out of the other Yorkshire and Humber sub-regions. Of the remainder of the population 1.4% are born elsewhere in the EU and 5.9% born outside the EU, below the English and Welsh average of 2.3% and 6.6% respectively.

According to the 2001 census, 68% (1,415,492) of West Yorkshire’s population described themselves as being of the Christian faith, lower than both the regional rate of 73% and the national rate of 72%. The next highest religion was Muslim, with 149,681 people in West Yorkshire (7.2%), which is substantially lower than the regional and national rates of 3.8% and 3% respectively.