South East England Councils (SEEC), which is an organisation for the 74 councils in the South East, has recently published their new data dashboard.

Its essential figures highlight both South East success and some of the challenges we face across the key themes of economy and employment; housing and infrastructure and demography.

Newly-commissioned research for SEEC by Oxford Economics shows that while the South East contributed the highest net surplus to Treasury of £154.3bn from 2000/01 to 2015/16, our net returns have fallen £21.6bn behind London over the last 3 years.

It also found that the South East has had the highest net addition of homes (34,900, a significant 6,400 increase on the previous year) and the UK’s largest population (at 9.1m which is expected to rise to 10.5m by 2039).

Caroline Wood, Director of the Coastal West Sussex Partnership comments: “The data dashboard provides a great opportunity to see the economic performance of the region in one place. It’s fantastic to be able to see the success of the area – with the addition of new homes being built, but also understand where the needs are – for example, the South East having the largest UK population and an ageing one at that, with 805,000 residents aged 75 and older. This allows for economic plans to be made to ensure that future resource demands are met.”

See the full summary here.