Government initiatives sound good but will they help the housing market?

It is interesting to hear the Housing Minister, Grant Shapps, blowing his bugle and telling the world how well the government has been at encouraging the construction of new homes throughout the country.
Mr Shapps even said: “I am determined that we (the government) shall not repeat the mistakes of the past.”
However, and forgive my mixing metaphors, but there is a real probability that the current market, created by lack of consumer confidence and restrictive mortgage deals, will burst his bugle.
The government’s shopping list of incentives is impressive. Enough land identified to build 80,000 homes, the immanent launch of the NewBuy Guarantee scheme, the growing momentum of the Get Britain Building and Growing Place Funds.
All good stuff but are these initiatives actually creating the homes and associated jobs so needed by both the UK’s society and economy? Many would say it’s too early to say and they may be right.
Unfortunately not on the government’s shopping list is an initiative that will encourage banks to provide the funding to buy land and build homes, or reduce potential homeowner’s deposits.
Also, initiatives like the NewBuy Guarantee Scheme are aimed at purchasers of brand new property and will, therefore, fail to bump start moving chains which rely on first-time buyers of existing homes getting the chain moving.
It is all too easy to knock government and it has to be said they are creating a focus on the creation of new homes so absent in economic plans of previous administrations. However, it is no point making a cake if you do not have an oven to bake it in.
Great – we have found the land and there is government money to unlock it and create the construction jobs needed. But unless we have the people to actually buy the homes that could be built who in their right mind is going to build them?