"We welcome the Chancellor's realisation that people around the country are struggling to buy their own homes, and the measures introduced today may help a number of them.

But the danger is that if we don't tackle the fact we're still not building enough homes, we'll just create another housing bubble that will continue to push house prices up and out of reach of the majority.

The Government should be focusing on unlocking investment to build more new homes as a way of managing down the housing benefit bill and boosting the economy. We welcome the measures to support new supply but they are very small scale."

"The Chancellor's 'Help to Buy' scheme looks like the perfect 'get out of jail' card. It’s a bold move, perhaps a desperate one, but one that will be undeniably welcome by the beleaguered construction industry.

The Government has finally recognised that housing might offer the fastest acting pain relief for our economic woes and, perhaps despairing of local authorities to be proactive in supporting new house building, has decided to focus stimulus on demand."

"Probably the most single important announcement in the Budget must be the introduction of the 'Help to Buy' scheme...

It appears that the government has realised the importance of both the housing and construction sectors to the wellbeing of the UK economy and its fundamental multiplier effect."

"The construction industry shrank by 8% last year and we are continuing to see disappointingly low levels of housebuilding. Although the announcements today for further spending on housing and infrastructure are to be welcomed, it will barely make a dent in the delivery of the sustainable new homes and communities we desperately need.

The UK is in the grip of the worst housing crisis for decades yet committing to build only a tiny proportion of the 300,000 new homes that are needed each year to meet demand. The private sector has only ever delivered around 150,000 homes a year, so whilst today's Help to Buy announcement will enable greater access to mortgage finance, it does not sufficiently address the root cause of the housing crisis: we are not building enough homes, many of those that are being built aren't good enough, and we cannot rely on private housebuilding alone to turn things around."

"We needed a 'Budget for Housing' to address the acute shortage of affordable, energy-efficient homes in the UK. The Help to Buy package is aimed at stimulating the underperforming mortgage market, which could provide a boost to all firms involved in house building, renovation and repair. But changes to the First Buy scheme will be of limited assistance if it remains too costly and complex for smaller developers, who deliver a third of all new homes.

If Ministers want an industry-wide boost to jobs and growth while delivering desperately needed new homes and meeting energy-efficiency targets, we need bolder measures such as cutting VAT on domestic repair and maintenance work, and reducing the regulatory burden which discourages so many small developers from even contemplating building new homes."

"We're particularly pleased our call for a focus on the short-term boost of housing has been heeded, alongside an increase in longer-term big ticket infrastructure spending."

"Development remains stalled in much of the country outside central London and the old models for development are no longer working. Government has got to help foster new forms of public-private partnership and remove obstacles such as cumbersome procurement procedures if development is to be reignited.

While we welcome the additional support for LEPs [Local Enterprise Partnership], there is some concern, even with the additional money available, whether they will have the resources and authority to play the role the Government envisages. In many of the larger urban areas the combined authority approach may have more traction than the LEP and should be the focus for pushing forward local growth."

"Every additional pound of investment in infrastructure is to be welcomed in a difficult market where the construction industry is struggling from reduced activity. Infrastructure projects are long term and investments made into them also need to be long term and ongoing.

Regrettably the announced sum is insignificant relative to the infrastructure backlog and whilst we welcome the announced £3 billion of cost-savings from various Government departments, the reality is it won't make a significant impact on economic growth as it comprises less than 0.2% of GDP."

"Our members have told us repeatedly that the success of infrastructure projects are about delivery on the ground. RICS believe Government should spend more time and resource in supporting business to gain access to these public sector projects.

The Government has largely failed to realise that infrastructure projects don’t need to be big to be effective in creating growth. In fact small might very well be beautiful. Across the regions and the nations it's the smaller repair, maintenance and upgrade projects which can be picked up by medium and small construction businesses. Rail maintenance and school refurbishment are just two areas where a small amount of capital investment would quickly deliver great benefits."

"There is some good news for the industry notably, the increases announced in public sector infrastructure investment, new help and guarantees on mortgages and a commitment to publish a longer term investment pipeline (to 2021) covering the most economically valuable areas of the economy. But the extra spending on infrastructure will not start to bite until 2015.

What the construction industry wanted most of all was more assurance that government is focussing on delivery of projects but there is little detail about for example what the Treasury guarantees (announced last summer) have achieved and how deal flow in the public sector pipeline will be speeded up. The promised review of Whitehall’s capability to deliver projects will bring no immediate changes."

"The upside for those in infrastructure were the words of comfort for continued spend. That said, there wasn't any detail was there? The Chancellor did say it's taking longer than expected but we will have to wait until June to get an understanding of the spending plans; it feels too high risk to use 'hope' for something then as a good news story for infrastructure."

"I welcome the chancellor’s £3 billion a year funding for infrastructure investment from 2015, but this will not provide the catalyst that the economy needs now. It is also disappointing that we must wait until the 2015/16 spending review to understand how this funding will be allocated."

"While £3bn extra for infrastructure capital spending might at first appear welcome, it does not kick in until 2015, the details of the schemes are yet to be explained and it still only represents a fraction of what is identified in the National Infrastructure Plan pipeline. It is to be welcomed that someone with the track record of Lord Deighton is to look hard at the mechanisms for delivery of infrastructure projects. We look forward to concrete proposals in June as to how delivery will be transformed."