A NEW survey has revealed Burnley is the most affordable place to buy a house in the country.

Research released today from Barclays Private Clients showed that property prices were now more than 10 times higher than local earnings in 24 boroughs across England and Wales.

At the bottom end of the scale the most affordable place to live is Burnley, where the average cost of a home is just £34,860 or 1.7 times average earnings.

The highest ratio was in Kensington and Chelsea where property prices averaging £663,506 are 18 times local earnings, followed by Westminster and Camden in north London at 13.5 and 12.8 respectively.

Outside London, house prices averaged seven times earnings in the majority of boroughs in Surrey, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall, while for England and Wales as a whole the average is 5.98.

Last month a survey from the Office of National Statistics showed in run-down Daneshouse ward the average price of a house is just £12,659 -- officially the cheapest in Britain.

More than 9,000 locations nationwide were surveyed during a boom time for housing.

Working with the government, Burnley Council is introducing several initiatives to deal with unfit housing and high levels of empty property and to improve community safety, job prospects and training in Daneshouse and other parts of the town with similar problems.