Cornwall cannot afford to price out key workers
Dan Rogerson, Liberal Democrat MP for North Cornwall, today spoke out about new figures showing that the South West is now the most unaffordable region in the UK for key public sector workers.
According to the annual Halifax Key Worker Housing Review, the South West is the only region in the UK in which the average house was unaffordable for all five groups of public sector workers in all 34 towns surveyed.
North Cornwall has a house price to earnings ratio of ten to one, putting mortgages far out of range of most local people.
Dan Rogerson, Liberal Democrat MP for North Cornwall, said:
"These key public sector workers are vital to the social and economic health of Cornwall. We cannot afford to price key workers out of the market.
"The problem of unaffordable housing affects everyone in
Cornwall. I will be pressing the housing minister, Yvette Cooper, to tackle this problem by considering measures to increase housing supply and stopping second homes from swamping the local housing market."
NOTES TO EDITORS
The Annual Halifax Key Worker Housing Review shows that the average house is unaffordable for key workers in 339 out of 519 (65%) towns across Great Britain, compared with only 126 (24%) five years ago.
