New data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that live births in Mendip fell to 960 in 2022, a decline from 1,049 in the previous year.

This local trend echoes a broader picture, with England and Wales experiencing the lowest birth rate since at least 2002.

In the last decade, the peak in live births for the Mendip area was in 2015, with 1,171 babies born. Conversely, the year with the fewest births was 2020, recording 947 births.

James Tucker, ONS' head of health analysis, noted, "The annual number of births in England and Wales continues its recent decline, with 2022 recording the lowest number of live births seen for two decades."

Interestingly, the ONS found that the coronavirus pandemic had little to no significant impact on birth rates. The agency did reveal, however, that nearly a third of all births were to non-UK born women, marking the highest proportion since their records began. India has now replaced Romania as the most common country of birth for non-UK born mothers and overtaken Pakistan for non-UK born fathers.

In Mendip, 111 of the live births were to non-UK born women, making up 11.6% of total births in the area, an increase from 10.9% in the prior year.

Nuni Jorgensen, a researcher at the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said, "The number of children born to non-UK-born mothers has remained pretty stable over the last few years, but the number of births to UK-born women has been falling very rapidly. This inevitably means that the share of births to non-UK-born women goes up."