IT IS hard to imagine Guernsey populated by 64,300 people.

In percentage terms it does not seem too daunting, just another 3%.

In impact, though, the prospect of 2,000 more people in one of the most populous places on earth is a good reason to get nervous.

Unless something radical is done, the island will not have long to wait to find out just how crowded 24 square miles can feel.

For at current rates it will be just 10 years, a single decade, before Guernsey’s population is predicted to peak at more than 64,000.

(By comparison, the 1951 census figure shows a population of just 43,652)

The good news is that after 2020, the population is predicted to fall by more than 3,000 over a 40-year period, to about 61,200.

The bad news is that it will decline largely because the population is getting older. By 2060, more than 8% of the island will be aged over 85.

Even more worrying is the thought that almost a third of islanders will be aged over 65. And by adding up children and over-65s it can be seen that just three-fifths of the population will be what is currently considered ‘working age’.

Every 100 people of working age will support 79 who are not.

All of these figures should be taken against a backdrop of one of the most serious economic declines in modern memory, which has barely dented population growth, and a States resolution of just three years ago which optimistically sought to cap the population at ‘around 60,000′.

Many opposed an artificial cap then as a restriction on economic growth but it can now be seen that, without a genuine policy, the island was whistling into the wind anyway. Housing control does not equate to population control.

If the island is serious about population these latest figures, contained in the first such bulletin compiled by the Policy Council, should provide much-needed impetus to its policy group’s search for more effective measures.

But then if the island were truly serious about population control would it have shelved plans for a full census next year?