HOMES in York are 14 per cent less affordable now than in 2007 - bucking the trend for Yorkshire, according to new research.

Yorkshire Building Society has looked at housing affordability since the financial crash in 356 local authority areas across Britain by comparing local house prices and incomes.

It says that in Yorkshire, most places had become more affordable now than 10 years ago, because house prices hadn’t fully got back to where they were in 2007 at the previous market peak.

But York was 14 per cent less affordable now, with a house price-to-earnings ratio of 9.2 per cent, one of the highest figures in the region.

York Central Labour MP Rachael Maskell said the figures evidenced why York had such a serious housing crisis, and said the council’s ‘failure to build new homes for local people’ had exacerbated this crisis.

York Outer Tory MP Julian Sturdy said the Government’s housing White Paper outlined measures to speed up house building in the right places and York’s Local Plan provided an opportunity to deliver the housing York needed, particularly family accommodation.

The council’s Labour spokesperson for housing, Cllr Fiona Derbyshire, said the lack of affordability was causing problems for recruitment and retention of key workers.

York developer John Reeves of Helmsley Group said York was a "small beautiful city, a mini-London in the north, with desirability and quality of life second to none in the north, hence the high city centre prices".