A BUOYANT remortgaging market helped boost mortgage lending to £17.8bn last month in a sign that the home-loan sector has not ground to a halt, figures revealed yesterday.

The British Bankers' Association said that gross lending last month rose seven per cent compared to £16.6bn in March.

The number of mortgages taken for those switching deals leapt 24 per cent to 74,722, while the number of loans for house purchases climbed 3,158 to 38,704.

But the effect of the creditcrunch on lending is seen in annual comparisons, where homeloans for house purchases are down 39 per cent on a year earlier, leaving gross lending down 6.3 per cent year-on-year.