There is evidence that kids feel very afraid when they go outside the gates and it could create an even worse

“There is evidence that kids feel very afraid when they go outside the gates and it could create an even worse ‘them and us’ attitude for the future. “We don’t know how they will engage with society outside their own cloistered community,” said Dr Atkinson. Anecdotal evidence suggests that, while added security may deter some criminals, others are attracted by the level of affluence.There is also concern for the future of children brought up behind locked gates. It is an increasingly familiar sight in Britain. A driver, dressed in designer labels, manoeuvres his expensive car through the red-brick gate posts of an estate, and draws up in front of electronic garage doors, with a CCTV camera watching his every move

It is an increasingly familiar sight in Britain. All of the 30 fastest-growing counties were in the north of England, Wales or Scotland. But the situation was reversed when looking at price rises over just the past 12 months.

Homeowners in Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland have seen a 48 per cent rise in the value of their property over the past year compared with a UK average of 13 per cent.This was followed by Dyfed in Wales, with 44 per cent and South Humberside with 36 per cent. London came fourth with 180 per cent.Nine of the 10 regions recording the greatest price increases were south of a line from the Wash to the Severn, reinforcing the traditional image of a north-south divide. This is almost £40,000 (16 per cent) higher than in London, where the typical property changes hands for £243,346.Halifax analysed 10 years of house-price data across 60 counties to produce its findings, which appear to confirm the existence of a north-south divide: the 10 counties with the highest house prices, were all in southern England.The largest increase in house prices over the past decade was in Dorset, where prices have risen by 218 per cent since 1993. Surrey’s reputation as London’s “stockbroker belt” is confirmed by research showing that prices in the county are even higher than in the capital.
London was also outstripped in terms of price rises, with increases in parts of the West Country running at almost twice the rate of those in the capital.The average price of a property in Surrey is £281,451, according to Halifax Estate Agents, a subsidiary of the UK’s largest mortgage lender. Melanie Johnson, a Health minister, said: “The figures show that the overwhelming majority of parents and carers are choosing MMR as the best way to protect their children from these serious diseases.”.

Private clinics offering the separate jabs say the red tape involved in acquiring the vaccines means they are constantly running low on supplies. Several studies have since discounted the link, but hundreds of families now claim that their children have been damaged by the vaccine.Legal action against the manufacturers of the vaccine is due to be heard at the High Court in London next year.Ministers have refused to allow single vaccines to be made available on the NHS, insisting that MMR is the safest way to immunise children. Many of the mumps cases are occurring in teenagers, who were born before MMR was introduced, but who should have been protected by the “herd immunity” provided by younger children.A spokeswoman for the HPA said: “We are seeing local outbreaks in areas of the country where MMR uptake has dipped or been low for longer periods of time. We are concerned that, if this pattern continues, the increasing number of unvaccinated people could lead to an increase in the number of susceptible children.”This is why it is vitally important to reassure parents that MMR is the safest and most effective method of protecting our children.”The controversy began in 1998, when Andrew Wakefield, a researcher at the Royal Free Hospital in London, published a study linking MMR with autism and bowel disease in children.

We need to make parents see how dangerous these diseases are. I am not saying we should frighten them but we need to start saying to them, how guilty would they feel if their children got one of these illnesses and was seriously damaged or even died?”Measles can cause blindness, brain damage and death in severe cases, while mumps can cause infertility in teenage boys. Tony and Cherie Blair have been criticised for refusing to say whether their son Leo, aged three, has been given the jab.Dr Nathanson said more forthright tactics were needed to avert major outbreaks of mumps and measles.She said: “If we do not see MMR uptake rising, the epidemics will become self-sustaining and permanent because there will always be somebody who is ill, or infected or infectious. The statistics coincide with the disclosure that the uptake of the mumps, measles and rubella (MMR) vaccine is at an all-time low.Dr Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the British Medical Association, said: “These figures are extremely worrying.