Trust me, £100,000 doesn’t go far these days in Clapham

I grew up in SW4, home to the country’s highest household income – but even that wouldn’t be enough for me to live there now, says Rebecca Reid

Clapham Common people: in the affluent, leafy south London enclave, the average rent is £2,500… for a room in a flatshare (Alamy)

I have a game I play when I’m wandering the pretty streets of Clapham, the place I grew up and still my favourite London village. I look for signs that a house is inhabited by a family – scooter outside, faded rainbow picture in the window, tasteful Halloween decorations on the steps up to the front door.

And then I ask myself: how on earth does anyone of a child-bearing age afford to live here these days?

It’s a question that now comes accompanied by a data set, because this week it emerged that Clapham Common is the first neighbourhood in the UK where the average household income tops over a hundred grand – £108,100, to be precise, and some three times the national average.