By Chris Dorrell Households are continuing to feel the strain from the Bank of England’s interest rate hikes with the share of mortgages in arrears continuing to creep up. Figures from the Bank of England showed that the proportion of loan balances with arrears, relative to all outstanding mortgage balances, increased to 1.28 per cent in the first quarter of this year. This was up from 1.23 per cent in the final quarter of last year, taking it to the highest proportion since the end of 2016. The value of outstanding mortgage balances with arrears increased by 4.2 per cent on the previous quart…