Hot-spot for celebrity homes 

IT'S home to millionaire footballers and soap opera superstars, and now the Cheshire town of Lymm has notched up the biggest house-price hike nation-wide.

The quaint township, south of Warrington, has seen house prices rocket in the past year by 20%. It places Lymm at the top of the league table for price increases among dozens of market towns in England.

A year ago the average house price in Lymm stood at £232,459, and now the figure is just short of £280,000. four times the national average rise for any town or city in the country.

Its nearest rival is Bakewell - famed for its tarts - in Derbyshire where prices went up in the past 12 months by 18%.

Not only is Lymm at the top of the chart, it is the only North West market town in the table.

Lymm became popular as a dormitory town for business executives from Liverpool and Manchester, and then emerged as a sought-after location for Premiership footballers as well as television stars.

Sooty is a famous resident, along with Matthew Corbett, while ex-police chief John Stalker, Everton captain David Weir and Wigan captain, Dutchman Arjan De Zeeuw are Lymm residents.

Barbara Leicester, 71, has lived in the village all her life and has seen the population grow rapidly to more than 10,500.

"It has changed but it is still a beautiful village. It used to be a lovely little place, but it has been built up over the years.

There are still a lot of original Lymm people here, people who were born and bred here. There are now a lot of famous people here now, but we don't bother about them now. We just let them get on with living here."

Sue Reynolds, from estate agents Gascoigne Halman, said: "Lymm has become increasingly popular because it is just a few miles from three of the major motorways, the M6, M62 and M56. It makes it ideal for people working in the big cities and it is also close to the airports.

"We have nice restaurants and wine bars, but it remains a very pretty village. There are also a lot of traditional activities, such as the Dickensian festival when everybody dresses in old-fashioned clothing, and we have an annual village bonfire.

"It has also become very popular with celebrities. Our cheapest property is a flat on the market for £124,000, and our most expensive is £1.4m. There are properties for all markets here.

"Another attraction is Lymm's excellent high school which has four primary feeder schools. That is a real plus when people are looking for property."

Ironically, the market, which earns Lymm the title of a market town, now consists of just a handful of stalls, unlike years ago when it was a bustling marketplace.

In the same survey by Halifax, Ormskirk is named as Lancashire's third-placed market town for house prices, higher than the county average The average Lancashire property goes for £127,502, while in Ormskirk it is £200,405.

larryneild@dailypost.co.uk