Standing view · population · Brentwood
falling, held with strong confidence, formed on 31 August 2026 from movements in 2025.
The general fertility rate in Brentwood fell from 60.9 live births per thousand women of childbearing age in 2024 to 52 in 2025. Live births fell from 894 to 783 over the same years, and the total fertility rate from 1.68 to 1.44. The crude birth rate fell to 9.8 per thousand residents in 2025, against a population of 80,104. Four measures moving the same way across two consecutive years makes this a firm reading, and the fall in the fertility rate is steep for a single year.
A view is formed only where the evidence names a figure you can check. Each movement listed as a reason had to be large enough to matter and distinctive in at least one way — unusual against this area's own history, unusual against comparable areas, or sustained over several periods. A movement shared with peers counts for less, because it says something about the country rather than about Brentwood. Where no figure supports a direction we hold no view rather than a hedged one.
| Measure | Period | Direction |
|---|---|---|
| General fertility rate (GFR) | 2024 | falling |
| Live births | 2024 | falling |
| Crude birth rate | 2025 | falling |
| General fertility rate (GFR) | 2025 | falling |
| Live births | 2025 | falling |
These figures carry no defensible direction of their own: a rising house price is good news to an owner and bad news to someone trying to buy, so we do not score one as an improvement. They are shown because they are part of the picture, and they did not decide the view above.
| Measure | Period | Series |
|---|---|---|
| Total fertility rate (TFR) | 2024 | — |
| Population | 2025 | — |
| Total fertility rate (TFR) | 2025 | — |