WE have known for some time that housing is so expensive, many ordinary people can no longer afford to buy a home in York.

This is starkly illustrated in a new report by housing charity Shelter.

A survey of house prices by the charity concluded that just four of the 500 or so homes for sale in York earlier this year were affordable to an average family buying their first home.

That made York the most unaffordable area of Yorkshire – worse even than Harrogate, Ryedale or Hambleton.

Shelter hasn’t pulled the figures out of thin air. It analysed the asking prices on hundreds of thousands of properties across the country, then compared them with the mortgage it calculated an average family of first time buyers could afford.

Such inaffordability is the result of soaring house prices combined with wages that have stagnated during and after the recession.

The conversion of family-sized houses into “homes of multiple occupation” for students probably doesn’t help. Nor do increasing private sector rents.

Young people whose families may have lived in York for generations are effectively being forced out of the city: as are young nurses, teachers and others doing vital jobs.

Local authorities such as York’s have struggled to impose affordable housing targets.

With the local and national elections drawing rapidly nearer, it is clear that housing is an increasingly critical issue. Politicians of all parties should now put it at the very top of the agenda.