"It is significant that net mortgage lending during the month actually stagnated, reflecting the recent precipitous decline in approvals, " said Simon Rubinsohn of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

BBC: Mortgage lending slumps says Bank

"No new net mortgage lending across a full calendar year would be unprecedented and is likely to be associated with further weakness in consumer spending and an increase in unemployment, " he said in the report.

BBC: New mortgage lending 'to shrink'

However it massively increased its share of the mortgage market, taking 18.9% of all net mortgage lending in the UK against its previous peak of 14.5%, seen in the second half of 2006.

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Without such intervention net new mortgage lending - gross new home loans minus repayments and redemptions - would fall below zero in 2009 and see only a modest recovery in 2010, he said.

BBC: New mortgage lending 'to shrink'

Importantly, the measure of whether banks are increasing their net lending will be the sum of their respective lending to big businesses, mortgage lending to households, lending to non-bank providers of credit such as leasing and factoring companies and mortgage corporations, and either 10 or five times net loans to small enterprises.

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