BOURNEMOUTH is among the “cities” which saw the highest rise in property prices in 2016, a report has said.

The price of a home in the town grew by 5.7 per cent last year to £272,100.

Hometrack categorised Bournemouth as a city for the purposes of its report. It found fast rates of house price growth were shifting from London to many of the regions.

The UK Cities House Price Index put Bournemouth in 11th place, with Bristol at the top after a 9.6 per cent rise in 2016 took prices to £261,000.

Manchester, Oxford, Portsmouth, Southampton and Birmingham were all ahead of London. The rest of the top 10 consisted of Cardiff, Liverpool and Nottingham.

Jim Doerr, residential operations director of Dorset-based property specialist Goadsby, said the figures rang true.

“We had a bit of a surge in at the start of the year because of the stamp duty hike they brought in for investment properties and second homes,” he said.

“In the first quarter of 2016, we did see a bit of a rush on for people to avoid paying the additional stamp duty. There’s a severe lack of stock in the area so that’s kept prices high.

“We’ve still got very good employment down here. There’s always been a very strong demand and the problem is the amount of property on the market has dwindled.”

A spokesperson for Bournemouth-based housing and learning provider BCHA said: “This report highlights how important it is to build more homes and increase supply significantly, otherwise the opportunity for people to get onto the housing ladder gets harder and harder – plus there are fewer and fewer homes that are affordable to buy or for rent.

“The inequality gap will become even greater and we need to be closing the gap. Not only are prices growing too fast but rental levels are increasingly unaffordable for people on lower wages.”

Richard Donnell, insight director at Hometrack, said: “This latest UK city house price index reveals how the impetus for house price growth is shifting to more affordable cities where the recovery in house prices has been more muted in recent years. Price rises are gaining momentum in cities where low mortgage rates are yet to be fully priced into housing.”