Housing affordability in Northumberland was worse than anywhere else in the North East, new figures show.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show full-time employees in Northumberland could expect to spend 6.2 times their annual earnings on purchasing a home in 2023 – close to the ratio of 6.1 times the year before.

It meant Northumberland had the highest average house price-to-earnings ratio in the North East, making it the least affordable area in the region.

Houses in Northumberland were 5.6 per cent more expensive in 2023 than the year before, at an average price of £190,000. In the meantime, wages saw a 4 per cent year-to-year increase.

Maya Singer Hobbs, senior research fellow at The Institute for Public Policy Research, said: “To increase housing supply, and ensure homes are more affordable - whether to rent or buy - we need to reform and streamline the planning system, tackle our dysfunctional land market, and increase investment in genuinely affordable homes.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: “Over 876,000 households have been helped to purchase a home since spring 2010 through Government-backed schemes including Help to Buy and Right to Buy."