Pensioners outnumber children for the first time as more and more people live longer, new figures show.

The fastest-growing pensioner group is the over-80s, who are benefiting from improved diets and healthcare. Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that the future is grey, with the pensioner population projected to grow to more than 12 million within two years.

The long-term implications of the pensioner population rising to 11,561,000 and the number of under-16s falling to 11,509,000 last year will affect housing, health and education in the years to come.

Within the overall figures, the number of over-80s has doubled to 2.7million in the past 27 years.

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As soon as the preliminary figures emerged, officials from the ONS were called in by ministers to discuss the policy implications.

Mervyn Kohler, special adviser at Help the Aged, said that the figures indicated an urgent need to develop the potential of older people or else Britain would end up supporting a costly dependency culture among the elderly. More companies should invest in training older people to allow them to work, part-time or full-time, beyond the usual retirement age, he said.

Charities for older people said that the greater consequences of an ageing population would be in housing and in the community, where change would be needed to allow them to continue living independent lives.

Mr Kohler called for practical measures, including designing houses with fewer steps, doors wide enough to take wheelchairs and electricity sockets installed at waist level.

In communities he said that there would have to be more public transport to make it easier for the elderly to shop, plus the siting of seats and benches to allow them to rest while walking and more public lavatories for those who suffered from incontinence.

He said: “All the trends we have seen recently is that these kinds of facilities are going into decline. We are closing post offices, public toilets and public houses. We cannot afford to let it continue when we see this kind of demographic change taking place.”

Even if many of these facilities are put in place, Mr Kohler said that Britain faced a “huge time bomb” of age-related dementia. “There will have to be a massive investment in research into dementia. If we don't crack that, we are going to find ourselves with a huge number of people suffering from dementia, and the costs will be enormous.”

The rise in the number of pensioners and the fall in the number of children means there will be fewer taxpayers to support the ageing population - the demographic time bomb.

One argument for increasing levels of immigration is that this could help to mitigate the impact of a higher proportion of pensioners.

Yesterday's figures from the ONS shows the rate of immigration reaching a record level last year, with more than 600,000 people arriving - more than double the number when Labour came to power.

Britain's population rose to just under 61 million in mid-2007, a rise of almost 2 million since 2001. Record immigration was matched by a record 406,000 people leaving the country, including 202,000 British citizens. This gave a net influx of 198,000 last year, a net gain of 1 million since 2001.

Guy Goodwin, of the ONS, said: “There is a huge churn of one million people either coming in or going out of the country with the intention of staying for a year.”

Although net migration accounts for more than half of all population growth, officials said that the main cause of growth in the next two years will be a rise in the birth rate after an influx of female migrants.

Twenty-three per cent of births last year were to mothers born outside the UK but in some parts of the country the figure is much higher. Newham, in East London, tops the list, with 75 per cent of births being to foreign women, and Brent with 72 per cent.

Mr Goodwin, director of population at ONS, said: “The basic message in terms of population growth is that yesterday's migrants as well as today's migrants are contributing to the population growth that we are seeing.”

Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “These figures provide a stark illustration of Labour's failure to manage our immigration system.” He added: “Labour must realise that immigration can benefit the country, but only if it is properly controlled.”

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