Househunters wanting to purchase a property in Canterbury now face paying 10 times their annual salary to secure a home.

Prospective buyers face an almost impossible task of getting on the property ladder - with the average house price in the district now totalling £295,000.

Meanwhile, the average annual pay packet in the district is only £30,458.

The cost of buying a home in 2018 is 139% higher than in 2002, when the figure was just £123,500.

Meanwhile, annual salaries have only increased by £10,788, a 55% rise.

House prices have rocketed as demand has far outstripped supply.

Since 2002, the population of the Canterbury district has risen by 30,300 to a total of 165,700.

During the same period the number of houses has increased by just 8,210, taking the total in 2017 to 66,590.

It comes as KentOnline revealed the last batch of redundant army homes at the former Howe Barracks will again go to London families.

The news marked another blow to the city council, which previously lost out in a bidding battle with Redbridge Borough Council, but still hoped to secure the remaining 32 empty properties in Sobraon Way for local tenants.

Polly Neate, chief executive of the housing charity Shelter, said: “The figures leave us in no doubt that owning a home is an all-but-impossible dream for millions of working families. Combined with the dire lack of social homes, this has left huge numbers of people with no choice but to rent privately. It cannot be right that so many families, especially those on lower incomes, now face a lifetime in deeply unstable private renting, where they’ll have to pay well over the odds to keep a roof over their head. More families desperately need the option of social housing, and they need it now.”

Across England and Wales, the affordability gap between the most and least expensive places to live is at its widest since records began.

Each year, the Office for National Statistics calculates how affordable housing is, by dividing the median house price in local authorities by the median full-time annual income.

In Canterbury last year, the affordability ratio was 9.7, well above the England and Wales average of 7.8.

Houses in Canterbury were less affordable than in 2017, with the ratio increasing by 10.4%.