HOUSE prices are set to rocket again in North Yorkshire during the next 12 months. Happy New Year, everyone!

Except it is far from everyone who will benefit. For those already on the property ladder, the news will make the last of the turkey sandwiches slip down a little easier. For the rest, it makes the notion of owning their own home about as likely as York City qualifying for the Champions League.

Housing problems are set to dominate the political agenda in 2004, as tonight's Evening Press confirms.

The gulf between the property haves and have-nots has never been more starkly illustrated. While home owners can enjoy the ongoing boom, projects to help homeless people in York are threatened by the Whitehall bean-counters.

Meanwhile, young families in York and its outlying villages have little hope of buying a home on their doorstep. They can only watch as the frenzy of flat-building continues, knowing most of these will be way out of their price range, and will sell to incomers and Leeds commuters.

MP Hugh Bayley has written to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott drawing attention to the problem. Mr Prescott's housing pronouncements have centred on the property crisis in South East England: it is time he recognised there are similar pressures up here.

Property developers are already compelled to include a proportion of affordable homes in larger York building projects. This is a worthwhile scheme which needs extending.

The most innovative application of the policy is the plan for New Osbaldwick, the 21st century New Earswick envisioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Unfortunately it has drawn significant opposition from local residents' groups. We can only hope further negotiations will allow the scheme to progress in 2004.

Updated: 10:51 Friday, January 02, 2004