The Government's campaign to win the hearts and minds of homeowners continues to meet with limited success, partly because Middle England has an awkward tendency to read the small print.

This habit, the result of either too much exposure to Which? magazine or a nerdy streak in the national psyche, meant that enthusiasm for the planning permission concessions announced this week was constrained.

Caroline Flint, the Housing Minister, revealed that she was “slashing red tape” for growing families who were staying put in the downturn.

They will no longer be compelled to seek consent to convert their lofts or build extensions. But anyone scanning Ms Flint's statement will soon discover that many households' expansionary ambitions could still be thwarted. Ken Dijksman, a planning expert, claims that there may be more red tape rather than less, especially for those who live in conservation areas, or for those forever increasing their home's square footage to accommodate more children or gadgets.

The new freedoms will apply only to properties that have not been extended since 1947, or since they were built. Rear extensions will no longer be subject to a volume cap, but their depth and height are to be more restricted than under current regulations.

The rules for loft conversions (for which planning permission is in some circumstances not currently needed) set out different size limits for conversions in detached, semi-detached and terraced houses. This may be irksome for individuals with a grand design to make their property more spacious, and hideously top-heavy, but it will come as a relief to neighbours who would have been forced to gaze upon such a protuberance. This curb on the loft extension as an unneighbourly act will be one welcome result of these for which the Government will surely wish to take the credit.

Ministers may be less willing to claim any association with some of the unintended consequences of last week's housing market measures, including the stamp duty holiday on properties up to £175,000. This concession, condemned as “too little, too late”, is providing a marketing opportunity for housebuilders: Barratt Developments is waiving the tax on properties up to £500,000, for example, in a publicity drive that makes Alistair Darling look mean.

The exemption was supposed to steel the nerves of first-time buyers. But they will be unable to exploit it - unless the Crosby investigation ends the mortgage drought. Sir James Crosby, the former chief of HBOS, delivers his findings in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, the tax break seems to be of far more interest to investors with spare cash and the ability to be unmoved by forecasts of further price falls. In the last few days, several websites, such as mustbesold.com, have appeared promoting repossessions to such buyers. Ministers may feel uncomfortable that a tax break for hard-pressed twentysomethings is more a boon for rich fiftysomethings - but who cares, if the market gets a useful boost?

Exclusive goes local

The Bishops Avenue, near Hampstead Heath in North London, has often served as a handy example of housing market excess, ranch-style mansions and oligarch standards of interior decor (numerous bathrooms, leather-covered walls and the like).

In January, Halis Toprak, a Turkish businessman, sold his mansion for £41 millon (not the reputed £50 million), having originally offered it at £30 million, a deal that indicated that the credit crunch had not found its way to the capital's billionaires' rows.

Subsequently, the property has undergone an extensive refurbishment, but this is nothing surprising down The Bishops Avenue, where “make do and mend” is not a watchword. But suddenly the road has lost a little bit of its separate eco-system status. The recently redeveloped seven-bedroom property, pictured above,is in White Lodge Close, an “enclave” off The Bishops Avenue. Its asking price has just been reduced - albeit from £9.95 million to £7.95 million. Savills, the agent, advised that the price be cut to make the place more attractive to a local, rather than an international, clientele.

This strategy may have been inspired by the demand for the Allingham Court flats built on The Bishops Avenue by Barratt, which have been one of the hard-pressed group's better bets this year.

The scheme has been popular with locals, albeit of the moneyed variety: the prices of the apartments ranged from £3 million to £11 million. Only the Smithsonian remains unsold (all the flats are named after museums and galleries). This and more information can be found on the Allingham Court website, www.allinghamcourt.co.uk , with its black and gold design and descriptions of the “radiant indulgence” available to residents of the Ashmolean, the Guggenheim and the rest. This mixture of pretension and delight in luxury and comfort suggests that not everything has changed down The Bishops Avenue.

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