House prices in Tower Hamlets fell by more than five per cent over the last 12 month – the fifth largest average price drop of any UK authority.

The average property in the area sold for £438,198 – nearly double the UK average of £226,906, the latest data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show.

Property prices across London have risen by one per cent in the last year, to £484,584. The region underperformed compared to the UK as whole, which saw the average property value increase by 3.9pc.

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.

While homeowners in Tower Hamlets saw their house price fall by 5.8pc in the last year on average, property values have jumped in value by around £146,000 in the last five years.

The figures also showed that buyers who made their first step onto the property ladder in the borough in April spent an average of £426,241 – around £143,000 more than it would have cost them five years ago.

Between January and December last year, the most recent 12 months for which sales volume data is available, 3,507 homes were sold in the borough, 24pc fewer than in the previous year.

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 3.9pc 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.”

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.