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Overview

North West · Non-metropolitan district

Preston

2026/27 view

Preston · ONS E07000123

Financial position as at 2026/27 Q1 quarter end

View sources
PEOPLE AND PLACE

Population and community profile

Latest official statistics
Population 162,864 2024
North West region 7,737,414
Preston represents 2.10% of the region's population
Five-year population change
+18,240 residents ↑ 12.6%
2019: 144,624 residents2020: 145,912 residents2021: 147,786 residents2022: 152,550 residents2023: 158,317 residents2024: 162,864 residents
Preston +12.6%
North West +5.1%
England +4.3%
Growth context

Preston's population grew over five years. Its change was 7.5 percentage points above the North West and 8.4 percentage points above England.

2019–2024 ONS mid-year estimates
Population estimates and labour-market measures from ONS/Nomis.Official profile
AIR QUALITY

How clean is the air?

Long-term particulate pollution across the council area, alongside measurements from local UK-AIR monitoring stations.

POPULATION-WEIGHTED ANNUAL MEAN

Fine particulate matter

No annual PM2.5 estimate is currently available.
LONG-TERM TREND

PM2.5 over time

Not enough annual data is available to show a trend.
CURRENT MONITORING

Latest station measurement

UK-AIR
PM2.5 14.1 µg/m³
Provisional
Last 24 hours 7.1 – 17.8 µg/m³
2026-09-22 02:00:00+01: 7.5 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 03:00:00+01: 7.1 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 04:00:00+01: 8.2 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 05:00:00+01: 7.9 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 06:00:00+01: 7.5 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 07:00:00+01: 7.7 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 08:00:00+01: 8.0 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 09:00:00+01: 9.5 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 10:00:00+01: 12.0 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 11:00:00+01: 15.7 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 12:00:00+01: 16.2 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 13:00:00+01: 17.8 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 14:00:00+01: 16.3 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 15:00:00+01: 16.2 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 16:00:00+01: 16.5 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 17:00:00+01: 14.8 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 18:00:00+01: 9.2 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 19:00:00+01: 7.6 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 20:00:00+01: 7.2 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 21:00:00+01: 10.4 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 22:00:00+01: 11.6 µg/m³ 2026-09-22 23:00:00+01: 12.0 µg/m³ 2026-09-23 00:00:00+01: 14.0 µg/m³ 2026-09-23 01:00:00+01: 14.1 µg/m³
Preston Automatic Urban and Rural Monitoring Network (AURN); PAH Digitel (solid phase) · Urban Background Latest measurement: 2026-09-23 01:00:00+01

This is a measurement from an individual monitoring station and should not be interpreted as the current concentration across the whole council area.

HEALTH IMPACT

Particulate air pollution

No current OHID particulate-air-pollution mortality estimate is available.
Annual PM2.5 is Defra Pollution Climate Mapping data. Monitoring readings are station-specific UK-AIR measurements and may be provisional.