The Council of Mortgage Lenders has announced a further fall in lending for September.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has announced a further fall in lending for the month of September 2008, down 10% from August.

Gross mortgage lending reached an estimated £17.7 billion in September, a decline of 10% from August and 42% from September last year, according to CML.

For the third quarter, it is estimated to be £62bn, down 16% from the second quarter of 2008 and 37% from the third quarter of last year.

Although a seasonal fall is typically experienced between August and September, this latest figure is in fact the lowest gross lending figure since January 2005 and the lowest September figure since 2001.

Michael Coonan, the Director General of CML, said: “The mortgage market is open for business. But weakening consumer demand and ongoing funding constraints will dampen monthly lending figures for the rest of this year and into the first quarter of 2009.

“We estimate gross lending in 2008 will be around £255bn (£363bn in 2007) and net lending of around £40bn (£108bn in 2007).”

The Council of Mortgage Lenders’ members are banks, building societies and other lenders who together undertake around 98% of all residential mortgage lending in the UK. There are 11.74m mortgages in the UK, with loans worth over £1.2 trillion.