House prices in Kent crept up by 0.6% in April, contributing to a 6.5% rise over the last 12 months.

The latest data from the Office of National Statistics shows the average property in the area sold for £292,789 - significantly higher than the UK average of £226,906.

Across Kent, the largest monthly rise was in Tunbridge Wells, up 3.7% to £398,612.

However, four districts in Kent recorded a decline in house prices.

The largest of these was in Dover, down 3.7% to £231,009, which is also the lowest average house price in the county.

Across the South East, property prices have risen by 3.5% in the last year, to £324,530. The region underperformed compared to the UK as whole, which saw the average property value increase by 3.9%.

The data comes from the House Price Index, which the ONS compiles using house sale information from the Land Registry, and the equivalent bodies in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The average homeowner in Kent will have seen their property jump in value by around £97,000 in the last five years.

The figures also showed that buyers who made their first step onto the property ladder in Kent in April spent an average of £240,066 - around £79,000 more than it would have cost them five years ago.

Addressing the national picture, Lawrence Bowles, the associate director of the research team at the estate agents Savills said: "The key thing to note is that we are still seeing growth in house prices across the UK.

"In particular, house prices have gone up 3.9% in the year to April - though it is slowing down. People are starting to get a bit more wary about Brexit; people are starting to sit on their hands as they wait to see how things turn out.

"The strongest growth regionally is finally shifting away from London, and moving to the South West and the West Midlands. We expect to the north to start catching up slowly."

Between January and December last year, the most recent 12 months for which sales volume data is available, 27,763 homes were sold in Kent, 2% fewer than in the previous year.

The highest house prices in the country in April were found in Kensington and Chelsea, where properties sold for an average of £1,350,179 - 17 times the cost of a home in Burnley, where the average property cost just £78,204.