MORTGAGE lenders have been blamed for the shortage of affordable housing highlighted in the survey of housing needs published last week by West Devon Borough Council, writes George Black.

The National Association of Estate Agents' Devon spokesman Richard Copus said that building societies were lending far too much to first-time buyers and thereby pushing prices up.

'The survey is dead right that there is a lack of affordable housing,' said Mr Copus. 'If building societies lent less it would dampen prices and would make more affordable homes available.'

Building societies now lent up to 95 per cent to 100 per cent of the purchase price, compared with only 75 per cent some years ago, which had contributed to the rise in prices, he argued.

A new report by the NAEA said that house price increases in recent years had sharply reduced the supply of affordable homes for new entrants.

This appeared to reinforce the conclusions of the West Devon survey, presented to the strategic development committee last week. The survey exposed what independent researcher Richard Fordham called 'a whopping deficit' in homes in the area priced between £34,500 and £92,000.

Neil Woolcock, principal at Ward and Chowen, the local surveyors, land agents and auctioneers and president of the Tavistock and District Chamber of Commerce, also thought that too much lending was making the situation more difficult.

He noted that many more institutions were attempting to lend than a few years ago. Tavistock's house prices were particularly high because it was wealthy compared with surrounding towns and villages, with a lot of people commuting to Plymouth, he said.

He said: 'There is a shortage of properties affordable by first-time buyers in their twenties as they could need an income of around £20,000 to buy a home of £55,000 to £60,000. Not many employers can afford to pay young people that much around here.'

He was hopeful that the borough's plan to build 1,900 new homes would help alleviate the shortage, provided they did not all come on the market at once and bring prices down too sharply.

Steve England, Tavistock branch manager for the Bradford and Bingley Building Society, did not think mortgage lenders were at fault, but agreed there were more of them now: 'The short supply of property in this area is illustrated by the fact that houses around here sell in an average of four weeks, compared to nine weeks nationally.'

Often, low-end property around West Devon was sold to rent, rather than to first-time buyers, because the deal could be done more quickly, he added.