Originally Posted by
BHX5DME
Manchester ?
If we are purely looking at city populations but lets don't start an argument about catchment areas, this is just an observation
London7.2 Million
Birmingham992000
Leeds720000
Glasgow560000
Sheffield512000
Bradford467000
Edinburgh450000
Liverpool440000
Manchester420000
Bristol380000
380,000 is the Bristol municipal population figure at the last census - eight years ago. The municipal population is now estimated at 460,000.
https://www.bristol.gov.uk/statistic...ion-of-bristol
The boundary of Bristol has not expanded since the early 60s - prior to then it would expand at regular intervals down the centuries as the urban area spread into neighbouring Somerset and Gloucestershire. The urban area has continued to spread incessantly beyond Bristol's municipal boundaries during the past 50 years particularly into what is now the unitary authority of South Gloucestershire. Bits of urban North Somerset and Bath & Northeast Somerset unitary authorities are also contiguous with municipal Bristol. All this means that the actual physical unbroken urban 'city' as opposed to the municipal one has a population of around 700,000. Had the borders continued to expand as they did until the early 60s this would now be the population of municipal Bristol.
Eurostat's concept of larger urban zones that measures a city and its commuting zones is probably a more realistic guide to metropolitan area populations.
The Bristol city region has one of the most successsful economies in the UK. Bristol is the only English city outside London to produce more money for the Treasury than it receives.
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/b...t-board-622667
Its buoyant economy and physical location roughly between CWL and EXT are two pointers to the passenger numbers that use BRS. Another is the large number of older, often retired people who live in the West Country who have the means, time and desire to fly for leisure.
The only real surprise is that such a small, awkwardly situated, poorly connected site with challenging weather conditions at times owing to its 600 feet elevation punches so heavily. With a bigger, better placed site one wonders how many passengers it would now be handling. The airport owners/management still reckon that 20 mppa is feasible by the 2040s but they will have to get over the major hurdle of expanding into the Green Belt to achieve that.