IT will take the average Winchester worker more than 14 years to buy a home in the city, new figures have shown.

According to the Office for National Statistics, the average weekly wage in Winchester is £613.70 per week — £92.90 more than the national average, and £46.70 higher than the South East.

But because of the cost of buying a home in the area, it will take around 14 years to earn enough money to buy at the average Winchester price of £430,706.

It follows a new report from Shelter which says young families and working couples are struggling to buy in the modern financial climate.

Shelter says that failure to build enough affordable homes has left millions trapped in an unstable and expensive rental market, where saving enough for a home of their own is now just a distant dream.

Shelter’s chief executive, Campbell Robb, said: “Parents are right to be worried. The reality is that unless we get a grip on the housing shortage soon, children today could spend decades paying out dead money in expensive rents, or living at home well into adulthood with little hope of planning for their own families.

“The only way to make sure young people have a hope of a home of their own is for politicians to roll up their sleeves and commit to building enough truly affordable homes.”

Research for the housing charity looked at average wages, house prices, rents and spending on essentials to show the challenge faced by those trying to save for a home of their own in the region.

It found that couples without children face over eight years of saving, leaving many with the difficult choice between getting on the property ladder and starting a family.

Single people face an even greater barrier, with a wait of more than 16 years until they can afford to buy nationally.

It would take a single working female, with an average weekly wage of £551.70, nine years to buy a flat or 23 years to buy a detached house in Winchester.

Stricter lending criteria means it is more difficult for prospective home-buyers to get a mortgage.

Most buyers now need deposits of at least 15 to 20 per cent as opposed to zero deposits before the credit crunch.

Stephen Gates, chairman of the Winchester area Chamber of Commerce, pictured, said: “The Chamber of Commerce has consistently supported the need for more affordable housing in Winchester. “Whilst new housing developments can attract natural local resistance, it is important for there to be opportunities to live and work within Winchester if the city is to enjoy continued growth and prosperity.

“It is also important that innovative shared ownership schemes are developed to allow first time buyers to access new housing.”

City councillor Fiona Mather said: “It wasn’t until the recent decades of very easily available credit (immediately before the credit crunch) that twenty-somethings routinely expected to be able to buy over the subsequent decades, often with zero per cent deposits and four times joint salary mortgages.

“There are expensive parts of Hampshire and cheaper parts of Hampshire. We had cheaper private housing in Winchester, but this was the first to be converted when we became a university city.”

But Cllr Mather added: “I sometimes wonder if this is, in any case, so very different from the past.

“My father was not able to buy a pair of very small cottages, with no water or electricity, with a mortgage for his family of two children and one on the way until he was 44 in 1958, and he was a barrister.

“He could not afford to buy so had to rent a flat. That was commonplace. Renting was the norm.”