Lunchtime news Tuesday 8 January 2024

The Halifax has released its house price index for December which shows that prices went up by 1.3 per cent, the first rise in the past four months. The overall annual rise was 5.2 per cent, the slowest annual rate of growth since 1996, taking the average UK home to £197,039 in 2007. The lender predicts that house prices will slow down even further during 2008.

Bulgaria has come out on top of a global house price index for 2007. Figures to the end of September 2007 show Bulgarian house prices rose 30.6 per cent, narrowly pipping China which saw a maximum 27.9 per cent growth in the city of Shanghai, with Singapore third at 27.6 per cent. The UK was placed 14th out of 42 countries surveyed.

Figures from the Telegraph newspaper indicate that half of the country’s unmarried service personnel continues to live in sub-standard military accommodation. More than 80,000 bed spaces in the armed forces worldwide stock of single living accommodation (out of 165,500) has received the lowest rating available - category four – where they fail in all three official tests relating to condition, scale and location, with a further 28,000 beds falling into the second lowest band. Only 38,100 spaces achieved a top rating. The level of family accommodation reaching grade one has improved to 59 per cent over the past six years, however almost 9,000 families still remain in grade four homes, and a further 387 families are in accommodation so poor that it doesn’t reach the lowest official grading.

And research by the charity, Leonard Cheshire Disability, has found that half of all disabled people are trapped in poverty. At least three million people are living below the poverty line, which is more than 10 years ago; more than 50 per cent were unemployed and those with jobs were likely to be in low-paid work; and living costs for the disabled are around 25 per cent higher than those without disabilities.

And finally, the most expensive property ever sold in Britain has been revealed – a £35 million, seven-bedroom newly built house in Hampstead, north London. Boasting a £750,000 staircase, a £100,000 fireplace and a front door worth £50,000, the house has been designed to last ‘for 300 years’.