Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) director general Paul Smee told the audience at today’s lending industry’s annual conference that market forces and the government can both act as a catalyst to break the stalemate in the mortgage market and help to encourage conditions that are conducive to housing market sustainability.

Smee said that regulation and negative sentiment were blocks to progress, but that better market conditions are attainable with effort. But to achieve them requires joined-up thinking on the part of regulators, government, and industry alike, he added.

The CML boss warned against the danger of self-reinforcing gloom, remarking that current sentiment echoed that of the 1970s, which was then followed by the high-growth economy of the 1980s: “so the wheel will turn””.