The Scottish home building industry has welcomed today's Government announcements aimed at increasing lending capacity but called for these to be followed through immediately.

Jonathan Fair, Chief Executive of Homes for Scotland, the organisation which represents companies building 95% of the country's new homes, said: "Homes for Scotland and others in the lending community have been calling on the Government to act on the recommendations of Sir James Crosby for months in order to protect jobs and stimulate recovery in the housing market. Today we finally have some action.

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"Whilst this is welcome news indeed, the implementation of many of these measures, particularly the Guarantee scheme for asset backed securities, lies many weeks if not months away.

"It is therefore far too early to comment on what the full impact may be. What is certain, however, is that increasing the availability of mortgage finance is key to solving the problems facing the home building sector. We have already waited long enough."

Mr Fair concluded the Government must immediately follow through on these announcements.

(GK/JM)