IT'S a sort of exile for many young people born in Knutsford.

They work in the town. They may even send their youngsters to Knutsford schools.

But they don't live here.

Instead, they have settled in places like Northwich, Altrincham and Macclesfield.

"To be honest it's so distant from possibility," said one single young worker.

"Knutsford is the last place I would look.

"Anyone who looks will come up against a brick wall of property prices.

"I would happily stay, but Knutsford would not be an option for me."

The situation is even worse for young families from the villages around Knutsford.

Peter Riley is from Plumley and works nearby.

But he lives in Lostock Gralam.

"I was looking at a house in Acacia Avenue," he said of his first foray into the Knutsford housing market.

"But I bought a similar house for £20,000 less in Lostock."

He believes there is a circle around Knutsford within which it is too expensive to buy. Young families are forced to look to Middlewich and Northwich for an alternative.

"Lostock is probably the ideal place where the houses are nice and close enough to Knutsford," he said.

Many of Peter's neighbours are from Lower Peover, Allostock or Plumley.

He believes many Knutsford first-time buyers are more likely to gravitate towards Altrincham.

Michael Groves, from Knutsford independent estate agent Thornley Groves, agrees.

"Knutsford is a victim of its own success," he said.

"Because of the prosperous business in the town, the motorway and the airport, it is very popular and people are prepared to pay high prices.

"Unfortunately it means that young people, who have grown up in Knutsford, don't look in Knutsford because they know there are no affordable houses."

The real problem is not house prices, but land prices.

It may seem as if housing developers are targeting Knutsford because they think upmarket houses will sell. But there is more to it than that.

The reputation of the town as a desirable place to live pushes up the cost of land - which means upmarket developers are the only companies who can make a reasonable profit from the hectare they are building on.

"Land's very expensive and it's very scarce," said Cty Clr Bert Grange.

"Somebody wants to make a nice little housing development but with the cost of the land they can't.

"I think it's a shame that the young people who do want a stable life, marriage and house in Knutsford haven't got a chance if that house is £100,000."

When canvassing, Clr Grange says the problem of affordable housing is the most common gripe.

The situation saddens him - his two children were faced with a similar problem when they left home - but there is no easy solution.

"The days of the council house are numbered," he said.

"People will have to think about providing their own place to live."

The days of a council house for everyone in need are indeed over.

"I applied for a council house," said Mr Riley.

"But the only way to get enough points is to get pregnant or be in an overcrowded house."

In Knutsford, the borough council owns 569 properties - flats, houses and bungalows.

Last year they handed over the keys to just 41 homes - and there are another 247 families still on the list.

Since the early 1980s Macclesfield has sold 4,000 houses from its original stock of 10,000 under the Government's right to buy scheme.

More than other authorities, it has had to use its imagination.

"As housing policies have changed we have had to adapt," said a spokesman.

Tenant transfers, joint schemes with developers, grants to ease council tenants into the housing market and schemes to encourage cheap rural developments all help to tackle a shortage of accommodation in one of the country's most desirable boroughs.

But many of those initiatives - as imaginative as they are - don't apply in Knutsford. The town is, housing bosses agree, a special case.

The council can insist on a developer providing houses for first-time buyers when it approves big new estates.

In Cheshire's county plan, there is no provision for new housing schemes for the town.

All the houses being built in Knutsford are on 'brownfield sites' - where other properties have been demolished - so there is no obligation on the developer to build anything cheap.

Even those properties built as cheap accommodation - such as the first-time buyers properties in Edenfield, Mobberley - get swept up in Knutsford's fevered housing market when they are resold.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.