Families were promised help in the housing market yesterday as the government outlined new measures to aid first-time buyers.

Chancellor George Osborne pledged to 're-invigorate' the right-to-buy scheme providing social housing tenants with a 50pc discount if they choose to buy their home.

Mr Osborne said the right to buy scheme was 'one of the greatest social policies of our time' and confirmed that the money generated from the scheme would fund the construction of more affordable housing.

He said: 'The government can use the low interest rates we've secured to help young families too, who want to buy a home but can't afford the very large deposits that banks are now demanding.

'And we are going to re-invigorate the right to buy. This was one of the greatest social policies of all time. It brought home ownership within the reach of millions of aspiring families. It was slowly and stealthily strangled, as discounts were cut and cut again. We will bring it to life.

The chancellor also pledged to help 100,000 people get a foot on the property ladder through the mortgage indemnity scheme and he also moved to help the construction industry get schemes off the ground with a �400m initiative to kick-start construction projects with planning permission.

Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, said: 'These levels of discounts will be extremely attractive, but it's vital that any new scheme includes rigorous affordability checks to make sure that people can truly afford to buy their home and maintain it into the future.

'Our advisers see people who bought under previous the right to buy schemes who are now living in homes that have fallen into disrepair because they cannot pay for the upkeep. We have to learn the lessons of the past and ensure this doesn't happen again.

'We already have a critical shortage of affordable housing. The government has to ensure that any homes sold under this new scheme are replaced by housing that is genuinely affordable for the million of hard working families across the country who face a daily struggle to meet their housing costs.'

Victoria MacDonald, cabinet member for housing at Norwich City Council, said she would have liked to have seen the government invest directly in building more affordable homes outright.

'Currently when a social house is sold 75pc goes to the government and 25pc stays in Norwich,' she said. 'We want to make sure that more money stays in the city. I would have liked to seen more from the government about building social housing directly.'

John Barrett, who has a son and another child on the way, has been renting for five years and believes he is no closer to getting onto the housing ladder through the new government schemes.

The 30-year-old, of Hall Road, Norwich, who works for Aviva, said: 'There is still no way we could save the amount of money we need for a deposit because we do not have the disposable income.

'We registered for social housing, but because we both have jobs we are not eligible, so we cannot take advantage of the right-to-buy scheme.

'What I would like to see is the government putting the interest rates up so perhaps more people would put their homes on the market, which would help drive the prices down.'

ben.woods@archant.co.uk