WIRRAL is home to the most expensive houses in Merseyside, according to a national survey.

The Property Rich List 2011 compiled by the Zoopla website highlights Heswall as having the highest value houses with an average price of £289,793.

Following close behind in the borough’s list are Caldy and surrounding areas with house prices of around £248,654.

However Birkenhead is named as the town with the cheapest houses in Wirral – just below Bootle in the region’s list for lowest value homes.

In London, average prices reached a staggering £1,737,862.

And Britain's most expensive street is revealed as Kensington Palace Gardens in affluent West London where the average price of a mansion is an astonishing £19.2m.

Business development director at Zoopla.co.uk Nicholas Leeming said this year’s list shows a clear North-South divide.

Mr Leemimg said: "Despite the recent property market uncertainty, Brits remain obsessed with the value of their home as well as those of their neighbours, friends and family.

"This year’s Property Rich List shows an ever-widening North-South divide and whilst house prices in some of the most expensive areas of the country have fallen a little over the past 12 months, they have held up far better than in many of the less expensive areas."

Zoopla’s results are worked out from a combination of Government information and estate agents’ and surveyors’ valuations.

The website also names the most expensive streets in the Cheshire and Merseyside area in which to live, but Wirral fails to make the cut, being pushed aside by affluent areas such as Shireburn Road in Formby.

According to the list, Britain is now home to 220,131 property millionaires, down from 223,119 this time last year.

And there are now 5,922 streets where average house prices are more than £1m.

London tops the list with the most "million pound streets" with 2,290, followed by Surrey commuter hotspot Guildford with 89 and Cobham, also in Surrey, third with 78.