The home town of Tom Jones, rock band thelostprophets and opera singer Stuart Burrows has leapt into the top league of places to live.

Figures compiled by the Halifax building society show the average property price in Pontypridd jumped in the last year by 65% to £84,742, from £51,417.

Wrexham, where prices rocketed by 60%, also featured in the top 10, confirming the town's upcoming status.

Hot spot yearly rise

Loughton, South East: 75% Smethwick, W. Midlands: 68% Pontypridd, Wales: 65% Alfreton, E. Midlands: 62% North Shields: 60% Wrexham, Wales: 60% Whitley Bay, North: 55% Wallsend, North: 55% St Leonards-on-Sea, South East: 55% Taunton, South West: 54% Source: Halifax. Q32001 to Q32002

Top of the list was Loughton in Essex, where prices rose by a staggering 75%, from £170,664 last autumn to £298,413 this year.

Pontypridd's own success story has been a slow-burning affair.

The market town rated in the top 40 places to live in the UK in a quality of life survey by Strathclyde University in the late Nineties, based on factors such as good schools, health care, cost of living and travel to work location.

The town offers a range of houses, from small terraced properties in districts such as Trallwn and Hopkinstown to larger, more modern homes overlooking the town at Graigwen and The Common.

Wrexham: Huge price increases

Nevertheless, Pontypridd was a something of a surprise inclusion in the Halifax top 10, in which none of the London districts featuring at all and the north of England was strongly represented.

Pontypridd has seen its ups and downs in the past 25 years, with the end of the mining industry, a lack of subsequent investment, congestion problems and the long-running on-off sage of re-developing the town centre.

But located on the edge of the Rhondda Valley at equal distances to commuter spots such as Bridgend, Cardiff, Newport and Merthyr Tydfil, the town has emerged as a desirable place to live.

At just under £85,000, the average price in Pontypridd is still roughly £20,000 less than some of the cheapest in Cardiff, where young couples and single people are looking for their first home further afield in places such as Caerphilly, Barry and the Valleys.

In north Wales, Wrexham's own success story - joint fifth in the survey - is partly linked to its proximity to affluent Chester, the giant Deeside Industrial Park and a high demand for local houses.

Wrexham lost out to Newport on the Jubilee city status competition, but defeat has done nothing to dent the town's up-and-coming image.