10% slump in Midlands home ownership revealed

Levels are now at the lowest level since 1986, as soaring prices force millions to abandon their dreams of buying their own place, new analysis warns.

Today's figures come following warnings about the difficulty faced by young people in Shropshire who want to get on the housing ladder. Concerns have been raised about the lack of affordable housing, particularly in rural areas.

The Resolution Foundation found the proportion of people owning their own home has plummeted across every part of the UK since their peak in the early 2000s.

Figures for the region including Shropshire show a drop in house ownership from 78.1 per cent of the population in 2005, to 68.7 per cent today.

In Wales the figure has dropped from 74.8 per cent in 2006 to 69.6 per cent today.

Metropolitan areas of the West Midlands, including Birmingham and the Black Country, show an even more dramatic fall, from 70.5 per cent in 2005 to 59.3 per cent today.

And Greater Manchester saw the biggest fall of all, going down from 72.4 per cent in 2003 to 57.9 per cent today. The Foundation said findings suggest figures that showed that home ownership increased in 2014 for the first time in a decade was "likely a blip" and the overall trend of decline is continuing.

Stephen Clarke, policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation, said London has a well-known and fully blown housing crisis, but the struggle to buy a home is just as big a problem in cities across the north of England and in rural areas like Shropshire.

Mr Clarke said renters face higher living costs in the long run and find it harder to build up a nest-egg later on in life.

Anne Baxendale, head of policy at the housing charity Shelter, said: "With house prices now completely out of step with average wages, sadly it's no surprise that home ownership across the country is declining so drastically.

"High rents are leaving many families struggling to make ends meet, let alone save up enough for the deposit on a home. Far from being the stepping stone it once was, many young people and families are now facing a lifetime stuck in expensive and unstable private renting."

A Government spokesman said more than 300,000 people have been helped into home ownership through Government-backed schemes since 2010, and a more than a decade-long decline in home ownership has stopped.

He added: "We have set out the most ambitious vision for housing in a generation, including delivering hundreds of thousands of homes for first-time buyers."