National Parks are highly desirable areas in which to live thanks to the beautiful countryside – but would you pay a 22% price premium to live in one?

That is the average extra cost forked out to live in a home in one of the UK’s National Parks, according to Nationwide. This is around £46,000 in cash terms based on the current average UK house price of £210,000.

And there is even a 5% price premium just to live within a 5km radius of a National Park.
 
Andrew Harvey, senior economic analyst at Nationwide, said: “National Parks are ‘Britain’s breathing spaces’ and those living in the parks can make the most of the great outdoors with a range of activities on their doorstep. The main National Parks in England also have easy access to major employment centres. Development is also controlled, with limited new housing construction, which also helps to explain why prices tend to be relatively high.”
  
Park life

The New Forest is the most expensive National Park to live in at £525,000, wih settlements within the park including Ashurst, Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst.

The South Downs, England’s newest National Park, spans 1,624km² across Hampshire and Sussex, and has the highest resident population at 115,000. The park includes a number of towns situated in the western Weald, including Petersfield, Liss, Midhurst and Petworth.
 
The Cairngorms is the largest National Park by land area, but is located within a very sparsely populated part of Scotland. Loch Lomond and the Trossachs are closest to major cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh, with an estimated 1.1 million people within 25km.