Another snapshot in five years could assess recovery from the coronavirus and test the government’s levelling-up plans
Ministers should plan to hold an emergency census in five years because the Covid pandemic will make this month’s survey “a snapshot of a strange unrepresentative time”, a leading academic has said.
Danny Dorling, professor of geography at Oxford and an expert on measuring inequality, said there was “serious concern” that this month’s census would not give an accurate picture of Britain due to lockdown measures. He said that an extra census in 2026 would also show whether the government’s aim of “levelling up” poorer areas was working.
