London: Normally a spate of pregnancies is put down to "something in the water."
But with a birth rate that is double the UK average and higher than some of the world's most densely populated nations, it is clear that something else is going on in Cambourne.
The village, a few kilometres from Cambridge, recorded 24.1 births per 1,000 population last year - more than in India, China and Indonesia.
Experts who analysed the figures believe the baby boom is down to the unusually high number of young couples who have settled in the village. It was founded only ten years ago and, as a community with three neighbourhoods marketed itself as "family friendly."
The ploy seems to have worked spectacularly well.
While five years ago there were around 2,000 people living in Cambourne, now there are 7,600.
They, along with 1,100 residents in two nearby villages, produced 210 babies between April 1 last year and March 31 this year. Birth rates have been rising consistently since 2004-2005, when 115 babies were born. The latest figure compares with a county average of 11.9 births per 1,000 population and a national average of 12.1, which has been boosted in recent years by record immigration levels that increased the number of women of childbearing age.
