06/01/2017 Look East (West)

House prices in Luton are rising faster than anywhere else

making it the biggest proportional increase.

According to the Halifax, the average price

an increase of ?41,000 in the last year.

And estate agents say this year prices are likely to go even higher.

As Kate Bradbrook has been finding out.

What we are looking at here is your typical two-bedroom house

This is one of the reasons the town is so popular

This house has been on the market for just one week and already has

For estate agents, it is a busy time of year.

According to the Halifax, 2016 saw prices rise here last year rose

faster than anywhere else in the country.

Appointments to view houses are already putting up fast.

We should see a spectacular year again, with house

prices continuing to rise, purely because there is a demand.

Businesses, schools, the area. It has put Luton back on the map.

The attraction is very high and they continue to see

The average price is around ?250,000.

It is a more affordable option compared to some

It is proving a popular choice. We lived in Enfield with my parents the

many years. I could not quite afford within the M25 so we looked further

afield. We bought this house two years ago. There are amazing

transport links to London and the train station is on fire. Luton is

good, we have a great airport, I can fly home whenever I want to Hungary.

If prices rise, Luton could end up closing the door on first-time

buyers. Those looking for affordable places to live. I asked a campaign

group if they were surprised prices had risen so steeply.

Home ownership has become unobtainable for average people.

Key workers like nurses, teachers, junior doctors,

simply can't find any way to buy a home in many areas of England.

They are increasingly finding themselves in a broken

private rented sector, spending over half their income

on a property in which they could be evicted at two months' notice

For those who are lucky enough to buy, London is,

Even those people who are living and working in London at the moment.

That is why, in places like Luton, the house prices are rocketing even

Should we have foreseen this situation, given how

All around the Home Counties and the South East,

they are experiencing high house price rises and Luton

I suppose the reason it may be rising faster than others

Would you class Luton as affordable any more?

Well, it is a very tricky question to answer, because everything

Like most of London and the South East, the average

person cannot afford to buy the home they would like to buy in Luton.

A cyclist who smashed his jaw in a road accident

is being helped back to fitness by 3D printing technology.

Doctors have used the special printers to help them build

a replacement jaw more cheaply and quickly.

And for George Boden who lives near Stansted it has meant a faster

Kate Silver's report contains some graphic images of surgery.

George Boden was a keen cyclist when, in 2011, he had an accident

I was out for a training spin and I slammed into a piece

Not a good idea to hit something with your chin at 30 miles an hour,

Doctors used bone from his shoulder and a metal

They then covered it with a skin flap.

But two issues remained, he had no bottom teeth

It's very difficult to speak when you have the opening

At a centre in north London, this team put in a CT

There was a 3-D printing of his jaw. It is an exciting time to surgery.

George's doctor, Ian Hutchinson, says 3D printing has

We use it to actually design exactly what we're going to take.

The technology helps to maintain a sense of hope.

First of all, if you know there's a solution you keep

going and secondly, red wine helps enormously.

There is also that passion for cycling, which survives in spite

And finally from us it's 20 years since we began broadcasting this

local version of the Look East news service from Cambridge.

Back in 1997 we were covering the cold snap, including this gas

explosion blamed on a frozen water pipe and these narrow boat owners

whose boats became frozen in the canal in Northampton.

How ever long you have been watching, thank you for you company.

Here's Alex with your weekend forecast.

Temperatures are not as low tonight, I weather system brings outbreaks of

rain, the risk of further light rain or drizzle through the night and

cloud and misty conditions left behind. Temperature is no lower than

three Celsius. Milder than this morning, the weather system clears

Way East but leaves cloud behind despite high pressure building in.

We can expect a gloomy and grey day through Match Of The Day. It stays

dry but the odd spot of rain or drizzle. Less cold. Slightly milder

with highs of eight or 9 degrees. The National weather is next. A

similar picture for Sunday with cloudy conditions but staying mild

before rain pushes in. Good evening. The weather has been

turning milder and also cloudier through the course of the day. We

did see some clear spells moving in from the North will stop this was

the sunset, captured in Dundee. Some clear spells as we headed through

the course of the afternoon into the evening. Really, through the

weekend, wiki with a similar theme. Much milder than it has been. A lot

of cloud around in general, but for most of us think. Dry. Not dry

everywhere at the moment, particularly across central and

southern parts of England and Wales. We have a lot of cloud, bringing

outbreaks of light rain and drizzle. The patchy rain will ease away

slowly towards the south through tonight and further north across the

country, drier conditions. Wherever