There are twice as many Poles living in Britain than the Government’s official estimates, according to the Polish Embassy.

The figures highlight how much the Government has underestimated the influx from Eastern Europe. The migration is causing problems for local authorities, which are complaining about the impact on health, social services and housing.

The Polish Embassy estimates that there are 500,000 to 600,000 Poles living in Britain, compared with the official figure of 307,000. The estimates come from economic and consular researchers in liaison with Home Office statisticians. They would mean that Poles are now the third-largest minority ethnic group in the UK, after Pakistanis and Indians. If the pattern is repeated in the other seven former communist countries that joined the EU in 2004, there would be nearly a million Eastern Europeans in Britain — about one in sixty of the population.

In an interview with The Times, Barbara Tuge-Erecinska, the new Polish Ambassador, said that Poles must be very satisfied with life in Britain, because they keep coming.

Latest Home Office figures show that by last September, 307,000 Poles had signed the Workers Registration Scheme in Britain, out of 510,000 from new EU members.

Ms Tuge-Erecinska said: “There are more than 307,000 because those that are already more or less established here have their families with them, those that establish themselves as self-employed or open businesses have no need to register and then there are probably big groups that are coming just for very short periods.”

The Home Office has long admitted that there are far more Eastern Europeans in Britain than those registered to work, but estimates still fall far short of those produced by the Polish Embassy. In August Tony McNulty, then the Immigration Minister, said he thought there were 600,000 people from Eastern Europe.

The Local Government Association and the Improvement and Development Agency have just launched a campaign to encourage ministers to acknowledge the extra burden by including migrants in local population counts. Boroughs in the South East say they are having to provide services for thousands of extra migrants.

Ms Tuge-Erecinska said that there were now so many Polish children in British schools that they should teach Polish history and culture. Such a move would help Polish children to preserve their culture and language, and to make it easier for British children to understand about their new classmates.

There are already more than 50 Polish Saturday schools around the country offering language and cultural lessons.

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