LATEST GOVERNMENT FIGURES SHOW MORTGAGE PAIN BEING FELT IN ST ALBANS

11.07.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 1st Sep 2008

The latest quarterly official government statistics for mortgage repossessions in St Albans County Court show a sharp rise both on the previous quarter and on the same period last year.

Over the first half of 2008, repossessions in St Albans were 25 percent up on the same period last year. But the increase accelerated to 35 percent in the second quarter of 2008 - indicating that there could be much worse to come.

Within Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Essex, only neighbouring Watford showed a greater increase in repossessions than St Albans, demonstrating the scale of the problem in south Hertfordshire.

St Albans Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate Sandy Walkington has described these figures as very alarming. "This could be the tip of the iceberg," he said. "We know how expensive it is to buy property in St Albans. People have to really extend themselves just to get onto the local housing ladder. Many will have taken out limited term fixed rate mortgages and the difficulty comes when they have had to renew their mortgages on much higher variable rates.

"The last Conservative government presided over a mortgage crisis with painful consequences then for many St Albans residents," Sandy said. "Labour has learned nothing from them, so history just repeats itself. The government should have taken action much earlier to heed Vince Cable MP's far-sighted warnings and curb the irresponsible lending which allowed the unsustainable bubble in the housing market.

"MPs have insulated themselves from the reality of the situation by giving themselves taxpayer-funded mortgages," Sandy said. "Nice if you can get it but it is quite wrong for any south Hertfordshire MP to be claiming this perk.

"Rather than looking after themselves, MPs should be acting to help protect people from the worst effects of the mortgage crisis. I hope they will all back Vince Cable's three-pronged approach:

• Allowing families struggling with repayments to sell all or part of the equity in their house and rent it back from a housing association or private firm so they can stay in their own home

• Letting councils and housing associations borrow money to buy up land and empty new homes for use as social housing - in St Albans, just letting the council keep and spend all the money it gets in council rents would make a huge difference

• Giving guidelines to the courts to allow homes to be repossessed only in extreme circumstances, making the mortgage lenders' voluntary code binding on all lenders.

"It is not the job of the Government to prevent house prices falling to a more affordable level. But it is not in the interest of the economy as a whole if negative equity and repossession leads to large numbers of people becoming homeless," Sandy concluded. "If enacted, these Liberal Democrat policies would help moderate the worst effects of the crisis."