YOUNG earners in south Bucks face the worrying prospect of living in one of the worst areas in the country for getting established on the property ladder.o

A report commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, an independent charity which aims to find solutions to social problems, warned spiralling house prices meant couples under 40 were finding it particularly difficult to get established.

A spokesman for the charity, said: "Districts in the South East are among the hardest areas anywhere in the country for young earners under 40 and key workers such as nurses, teachers and police to set foot on the home ownership ladder."

South Bucks and Wycombe were listed in the "worst 40" national areas for key professionals trying to buy a house and South Bucks was also included in another "worst 40" list regarding the under 40s.

The report stated the vast majority of households with earners in their 20s and 30s did not have enough income to afford even the less-expensive starter homes.

The average price for a modest four and five-bedroom house in the South East in 2002 £152,555 was just under four times the average annual working household income.

In Chiltern and Wycombe this figure was more than four times as much and in South Bucks it was approaching five.

Considering most banks and building societies set mortgage levels at between three and four times the household income, these latest findings will cause much anxiety among prospective house buyers.

Professor Steve Wilcox, of York University, who wrote the report, said: "These figures provide startling evidence of how the housing affordability crisis affects young people and key workers in large swathes of southern England.

"Even in dual-income households, key workers such as nurses and teachers still cannot afford to start buying their own home in many areas in the South East."