Most expensive places to buy property in Britain revealed – and a square metre there costs 13 times more than in the cheapest

A single square metre of property in Kensington and Chelsea now costs almost £11,000, more than 13 times greater than prices in the cheapest area, a study has found.

The research highlights the vast gulf in house prices between the South-east and the rest of the country, with London boroughs making up the entire of the top 20 most expensive places in Britain.

It comes amid increasing concerns about the lack of new construction to meet demand in the housing market, and with prices booming across the south.

This week the Bank of England will also reveal June household borrowing figures, after its governor Mark Carney announced the first limits relative to income on the mortgage market for 30 years.

Today’ figures, based on Halifax’s house price database, unsurprisingly showed that the most expensive square metre on average was to be found in west London, at £10,854.

But they also showed that the area has continued to soar away from the cheapest area, Stanley in County Durham, where the average property comes at just £818 per square metre.

Second and third in the most-expensive list were Westminster and Hammersmith and Fulham, where the values were £8,925 and £7,804 per square metre respectively.

After Stanley, Pontypool in South Wales was named as the second least expensive town per square metre, with an average price of £902, followed by Wishaw in Scotland, with a typical price of £925.

And outside southern England, the most expensive town was named as Altrincham in Cheshire – known for its popularity among Premier League footballers, with properties there typically costing £2,227 per square metre. It was followed by Edinburgh, where the equivalent average price is £2,214.

The 10 areas recording the greatest growth in house price per square metre over the past five years were also all London boroughs.

Seeing the biggest increase was Lambeth, south of the river, where prices rose 61 per cent. Kensington and Chelsea was the second-biggest riser, with the already-high values going up 56 per cent.

Nationally, Halifax said house prices per square metre had risen by 13 per cent since 2009, going up to 34 per cent just for Greater London. By contrast, prices in the North and Scotland fell by 3 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.

Craig McKinlay, mortgages director at Halifax, said: “House price per square metre is a useful measure for house price comparison because it helps to adjust for differences in the size and type of properties between locations.

“While there are areas in central London that are more expensive than anywhere else in the country, there are notable pockets outside the South East where property also has a high price per square metre.

“Many of those areas experiencing the strongest increases over the past few years are those with the highest price per square metre.”