Senior Scottish home building industry figures today met privately with the Bank of England Governor Mervyn King to outline current market conditions and the impact of monetary policy in Scotland.

Interest rates, wholesale funding recovery and rebuilding the strength of the banking system were among the issues covered during discussion at a special roundtable session in Edinburgh.

Jonathan Fair, Chief Executive of Homes for Scotland, the organisation which represents companies building 95% of new homes for sale, as well as an increasingly significant proportion of affordable housing output, said: "We have been fully engaged with the Bank of England directly and via its Scottish agent over the last eighteen months. Whilst early signs of stability in the housing market may now be appearing, the industry is far from being in recovery mode.

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"Much new development across the country is still effectively on hold and we are working to find ways of minimising the impact of both housing output having plummeted and half of the industry’s directly employed workforce being effectively lost to the sector.

"I believe it says much for Mr King that he wishes to meet with us directly, talking frankly and openly about the effects of monetary policy and what is happening on the ground in our industry."

(GK)