A FLAGSHIP £200m ‘mortgage rescue’ scheme has failed to help a single family facing repossession anywhere in the region, the government has admitted.

The initiative, announced last autumn, was intended to allow recession-hit homeowners switch to become a housing association tenant at an affordable rent.

Alternatively, the association would buy a share in the threatened home - allowing some of the mortgage to be paid off - or provide a bridging loan to allow payments to be reduced.

But figures released to MPs have revealed that no-one has been helped in the North-East or Yorkshire since the scheme’s launch in January. Across England, just one family has been rescued - in the East Midlands.

The revelation will add to growing criticism that Gordon Brown’s government has announced a blizzard of help measures, only to fail to follow them through on the ground.

A second mortgage help scheme - allowing a slice of mortgage repayments to be deferred for two years to give “breathing space” - has also run into trouble.

It finally got under way three months late, but several High Street lenders refused to sign up for fear of a wave of lawsuits for mis-selling if house prices continue to fall.

Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrat housing spokeswoman, said the flop of the mortgage rescue scheme would come as a big blow to tens of thousands of families at risk of losing their home.

She added: “This is an appalling failure by a government more interested in headline-grabbing than in helping families through the economic crisis.”

For the Tories, Grant Shapps said the scheme was on course to help just eight families over its two-year life span - instead of the promised 6,000.

The figures show that 134 North-East families approached their local council with “mortgage difficulties” over the first three months of the year, with a further 527 doing so in Yorkshire.

But, of those homeowners, just nine in the North-East and 110 in Yorkshire applied to the mortgage rescue scheme - and none at all were approved.

Ministers hoped the initiative would undermine private companies who offer to end mortgage misery by buying up homes at knock-down prices.

It was introduced against the backdrop of a predicted 75,000 home repossessions this year - very close to the peak of 75,500 reached in 1991, during the last recession.

Even if the 6,000 target is hit over two years, it would help as few as 300 families in the region, compared with an annual total of more than 15,000 mortgage repossession orders.

A spokesman for the DCLG insisted the scheme had enjoyed a “successful start” and said a further 450 applications were being considered.