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Karl Hick, managing director of housebuilder and developer Larkfleet Homes (www.larkfleethomes.co.uk), says the government is giving unprecedented help to the housing industry – but it could do better.

Writing on the blog of Peterborough-based marketing communications agency Metrix Marketing (www.metrixmarketing.co.uk) he says:

“The level of support that the housebuilding industry is receiving from the government is unprecedented – but then, so are its problems.

“In a nutshell, those problems derive from the difficulty that many would-be house-buyers are facing in securing a mortgage.

“The government could have ignored the problem but this was politically impossible for a governing party with attitudes shaped by Mrs Thatcher’s legacy of selling off council homes to tenants and generally promoting home ownership as an aspiration.

“So the government has intervened in the housing market with schemes such as Help to Buy and NewBuy.

“These are welcome interventions from the government which have made a significant impact on the market.

“Yet research which Metrix has undertaken on our behalf has shown that many would-be buyers are unaware of these schemes and many others are misinformed. The quality and quantity of promotional activity needs to be increased if the schemes are to become as effective as the government – and the house-building industry – wants them to be.”