SWINDON homeowners will take about 19 years on average to pay off the rest of their mortgages.

The announcement was made after the Royal Bank of Scotland conducted a study of home owners in the south west.

According to the results, Exeter is the home of the south west's fastest mortgages to be paid, closely followed by Bristol and Swindon.

The RBS Fastest Mortgage League highlights the UK's mortgage payment hotspots, where average-earning home owners can pay off the remainder of their mortgages in the fastest time.

The trend towards outright ownership appears linked to a desire for security as, according to the RBS study, two in five mortgagees say paying off their mortgage would be the single most important thing they could do to safeguard their long-term sense of security.

The RBS Fastest Mortgage League has been compiled using the average price of properties combined with the average homeowner income in each area.

Those figures are then used to determine the number of mortgage repayments necessary to pay off the mortgage on an average property, based on the fact that the average UK home owner spends around 18.5 per cent of their income on mortgage repayment.

The study showed that the average income of a home owner in Swindon was £21,476, while the average property price is £186,200.