MORE than half of the working population in the Colchester borough use a car or van to travel to work, it has been revealed.Around 62% of employees - 46,102 people ­- still reject public transport or cycling and get behind the wheel.

MORE than half of the working population in the Colchester borough use a car or van to travel to work, it has been revealed.

Around 62% of employees - 46,102 people ­- still reject public transport or cycling and get behind the wheel.

The figures, which were released as part of the national census results, also show that just 13 % of employees use a bus or train to get to work.

The entire population of Colchester in 2001 was 155,794, making it the third largest district in Essex.

The most inhabited ward was Shrub End, which with 10,528 people made up 6.7% of the total population.

The least populated ward was Copford and Stanway, with just 1,876 people living there.

In racial terms, Colchester has the third highest 'non-white' population of all of Essex's 12 districts at 3.8%.

The biggest minority ethnic grouping is found in the Wivenhoe Cross ward, where the percentage of 'white' people runs at 82.8%.

It is likely that this is due to the large number of overseas students studying at Essex University who live in the area.

Topics covered in the “census atlas” of Colchester include housing and households, economic activity, education and health.

CathrynCansdale, who helped compile the atlas, said: “It gives us a great insight into the make-up of the borough and how the people of Colchester live.”

Anybody wanting to look at the complete survey can do so at Angel Court, in Colchester High Street.

nA Colchester Borough Council website which showed where elderly and vulnerable people live in Colchester has been taken down after neighbourhood watch groups highlighted the error.

The council had uploaded detailed information about the make-up of the borough's residents onto its “census atlas” website.

One section showed how many elderly people live alone in different wards which could have allowed bogus callers to target people.

Mr Pritchard said: “This was an innocent mistake. The document in question had been put up their along with a mass of other information that we are making available for people in health and other services to use.

“We recognise there was a problem, but this is now being corrected. The information will be replaced and made more meaningless.”

The data was gathered from the 2001 Census and allows browsers to look at statistics on population, ethnicity, education, health and economic activity.

The corrected site can be viewed at www.colchester.gov.uk .