in 2007 found that only 7% of the population considered themselves as practising Christians. Some 10% attended church weekly and two-thirds had not gone to church in the past year. The Tearfund Survey also found that two-thirds of UK adults (66%) or 32.2 million people had no connection with the Church at present (nor with another religion). These people were evenly divided between those who have been in the past but have since left (16 million) and those who have never been in their lives (16.2 million). A survey in 2002 found Christmas attendance at Anglican churches in England varied between 10.19% of the population in the diocese of Hereford, down to just 2.16% in Manchester. Church attendance at Christmas in some dioceses was up to three times the average for the rest of the year. Overall church attendance at Christmas has been steadily increasing in recent years; a 2005 poll found that 43 per cent expected to attend a church service over the Christmas period, in comparison with 39% and 33% for corresponding polls taken in 2003 and 2001 respectively. A December 2007 report by Christian Research showed that the services of the Catholic Church had become the best-attended services of Christian denominations in England, with average attendance at Sunday Mass of 861,000, compared to 852,000 attending Anglican services. Attendance at Anglican services had declined by 20% between 2000 and 2006, while attendance at Catholic services, boosted by large-scale immigration from Poland and Lithuania, had declined by only 13%. In Scotland, attendance at Church of Scotland services declined by 19% and attendance at Catholic services fell by 25%. British Social Attitudes Surveys have shown the proportion of those in Great Britain who consider they "belong to" Christianity to have fallen from 66% in 1983 to 43% in 2009. In 2012 about 6% of the population of the United Kingdom regularly attended church, with the average age of attendees being 51; in contrast, in 1980, 11% had regularly attended, with an average age of 37. It is predicted that by 2020 attendance will be around 4%, with an average age of 56. This decline in church attendance has forced many churches to close down across the United Kingdom, with the Church of England alone closing 1,500 churches between 1969 and 2002. Their fates include dereliction, demolition, and residential, artistic and commercial conversion. In October 2014 weekly attendance at Church of