WHEN newspapers published a photo of the Leeds sixth-former Kaljeet Bansal at the wheel of her £400 second-hand Daewoo Matiz, my thoughts went back to a similar picture, taken four decades earlier, of me in the driving seat of an elderly Morris 1000.

But there our shared experience of the luxury of car-ownership diverges dramatically. While I motored along the open roads, confident that my long-suffering parents would cover the costs, Miss Bansal has been marooned on the hard shoulder, aware that not even family and friends could manage to stump up the £33,000 insurance premium that was first quoted to her. And even when another company revised the figure downwards by a mere £31,000, a £2000 annual insurance bill ensured that her motoring career came to a premature halt.

Compared with the majority of her peers, of course, Miss Bansal is fortunate in being able to buy a car at all. But, compared with the baby-boomers who are on the brink of retirement today, she could be forgiven for thinking that she has been dealt a poor hand.

While being denied affordable car-insurance is hardly the most onerous of life's burdens, it is the latest indication of how far young people are having to revise their expectations of a standard of living equal to that of their parents.

Even if she does well in her A levels, and makes it (probably by train) to university, she will be contemplating tuition and other fees that will leave her with a debt of about £40,000. On graduation, she will struggle to find a job that will pay her enough to secure a mortgage, or even to rent a small flat. She might even be forced to join the ranks of what the age-specialists Saga recently called "failed fledglings", who, through economic circumstance, have had to return to the parental nest.

In contrast, many of those very parents will have had their higher education paid for by the state, and will have been offered generous mortgages as soon as they were able to earn their own living. They will have seen the value of their property increase dramatically, and will more than likely be contemplating a comfortable retirement.

An upturn in the economy is not going to narrow this growing gap soon, but a scheme launched earlier this month at Portsmouth Cathedral might go some way to giving some young people some hope of making their own way in the world (News, 3 May).

The Cathedral Innovation Centre is harnessing the experience of older people across the city, and encouraging them to train the next generation. Those with a background in business will be passing on their expertise to young entrepreneurs, helping them, in some cases, to develop their own company. Small start-up loans are being arranged, and office space in cathedral rooms is being rented out on generous terms.

But the Cathedral Innovation Centre is more than just a physical place. Its founders see it as a model of community service, and a radical way of generating income and employment. Those taking part, they claim, will be pioneering a new model of entrepreneurship. Inspired by the Church, and by voluntary bodies, the business people of tomorrow, it is hoped, will avoid the mistakes of the past by putting community service on a par with company profit.

The centre will not bring Miss Bansal's insurance premium down, but it may lessen an all-round sense of unfairness which many young people like her are feeling in these straitened times.

Trevor Barnes reports for the Sunday programme and other BBC Religion and Ethics broadcasts.