DURING the last Gulf War, you could have bought a two-bedroom terrace home in South Bank, York, and pocketed change from £40,000.

Twelve years later, and you would struggle to find anything much more than a shed with pretensions for £40,000. Two-up, two-down properties built by the Victorians and Edwardians for factory and railway workers now cost close to £100,000.

The average cost of a York house, new figures reveal, is £140,000-plus. During our first set-to with Saddam in 1991, that would have bought you a double-fronted Victorian house on Acomb Road with - count 'em - five bedrooms, three attic rooms, three cellar rooms and the rest.

These Land Registry statistics confirm what we already knew: house inflation has yet to be curbed.

This has major implications for the future. While one generation sits back and watches its stock rise, the next is left with little hope of owning their own home. Incomers to York, moving in from Leeds or from much further south, are forcing locals out. They, in turn, are fuelling other property hotspots in Selby and Goole, and the cycle continues.

A buoyant property market is good for the economy, but when it escalates out of control, that is bad for society. The gap between the property haves and have-nots is becoming impossible to breach.

We cannot even be sure the boom is over: York estate agents say the market is levelling out, but only last Friday, headlines suggested it was the "year of the North" for house prices.

Chancellor Gordon Brown has suggested that Britain becomes like America and switches to long-term fixed rate mortgages. Other lenders have gone further and now offer 50-year mortgage terms.

These developments anticipate a grim future where young people are locked into deals for life.

So what else can be done to help the have-nots? Tonight we report how the York Property Forum is looking to protect the supply of affordable homes.

This is a welcome, common-sense initiative in a volatile market.

Laughs are us

HOUSES in York cost a king's ransom. We have barely finished one war, and the United States is looking to start the next. Hot spring weather usually means a lousy summer.

But here is some news guaranteed to cheer you up: York's first Comedy Festival is on its way.

Organisers have gathered a gaggle of gagsters to tickle this city's ancient funnybone in June.

With our continental caf culture, our Easter flower displays and now this festival, York will soon be known as the city of caffs, daffs and laughs.

Updated: 11:18 Tuesday, April 15, 2003