L&Q welcomes Budget announcement

The Chancellor Alistair Darling, has unveiled a number of new measures designed to kick-start the housing market:

•     Close to £1bn investment in the housing market
•     Extension of stamp duty freeze on properties up to £175,000 until 2010
•    £500m to kick-start stalled housing projects
•     Scheme to guarantee mortgage backed securities to boost lending
•     £80m extension of 'HomeBuy Direct' - the Government shared equity mortgage scheme announced
•     £400m to kick-start stalled housing projects
•     £100m of new funding for local authorities to deliver new social
•     Housing at higher energy efficiency standards

Waqar Ahmed, L&Q's Group Finance Director said of the budget: "We welcome some of the measures in the Budget targeted towards helping people access a new home or provide existing owners comfort from the risk of losing their home."

"The £1bn package to support the housing market should help the delivery of L&Q's shared ownership sales programme, thus enabling us to build more homes in the future. We recently launched our new Government backed UpToYou initiative designed to kick start the construction industry and welcome the Government's extra £500 million for the sector towards this goal."

"Additional funding measures to encourage banks to lend and increased social Homebuy grant funding should further boost the housing industry. It all comes at a price though, and that is a staggering £175 billion of extra public borrowing this year. This can only mean that in the near future public spending will be cut, borrowing costs will rise and inflation will remain volatile. The good news is L&Q's financial strategy is prepared for this and we will continue to meet our goals and aspirations."