Credit Crunch

It is a road like thousands of others across West Yorkshire, Westdale Road is near the Stanningley bypass (A647) and the Owlcotes shopping centre. A line of neat, small semi-detached houses stretch down the hill. A mix of mainly private with some local authority houses. It is not an unduly affluent area but is quietly neat and tidy, home to families, single parents and older couples.

What is life like in Westdale Road in 2009? BBC Radio Leeds is following the story of this street and the people who live here.

Why did we pick Westdale Road from the whole of West Yorkshire? Well Westdale Road picked itself. When a resident of the street got in touch with BBC Radio Leeds about the overgrown, and dirty state, of a ginnel, reporter Daragh Corcoran helped to get the cut-through cleaned up.

Then in 2008 Daragh again went calling in the street to see how some of the residents were managing the 'downturn', now it's a recession and we are back to follow the story of this street.

We last paid a visit on Wednesday 15 April 2009.

Kim and Sam (car door), Joanne (front)

And we're back, because of the budget, a week later.

First BBC Radio Leeds's Daragh Corcoran spoke to Kim Webster. It wasn’t a surprise for Westdale residents when they heard cigarettes and alcohol were going up in price in Alistair Darling's Budget. Kim said:

"We all hope its all going to be cheaper, but its not going to be that way. I'm a smoker so its going to affect me and I like a drink so its going to affect me again".

As her car is 10 years old, Kim's Citroen Saxo qualifies for the new scrappage scheme (giving a £2000 allowance on a brand new car). However, she's not going to go for the idea because her car is still in great condition and she hasn’t got the spare thousands of pounds in cash needed to buy a new one.

We also got Keith Jowett's reaction to the budget. He expects we'll get taxed more and more in the years to come in the knowledge that the country has a huge amount of borrowing to pay back. Here he is chatting to Daragh about the Chancellor's promise to increase basic state pension by 2.5%.

Keith Jowett and his family

Of the other pensioners we spoke to not one was impressed with the increased tax-free savings threshold on ISAs to £10,200. With little, or no, savings to their name they felt this change won't be a benefit, and of course anybody with savings will still struggle to earn much in the way of interest, due to the low rates at the moment.

This is the current snapshot of the story but BBC Radio Leeds and this website will be back to Westdale Road throughout 2009.