Andrew Montlake, partner, independent mortgage broker, Cobalt Capital, reflects on February's mortgage lending figures announced today by the CML. The CML's gross lending figures for February, showing a decline of 7% on January to around £24 billion, weren't as bad as some had expected but are a good reflection of what's happening in the mortgage market at present. The stories about how much more difficult it is to get a mortgage and how nervous lenders are aren't hype, they're a hard fact. Increasingly, we're seeing lenders look longer and harder at borrowers who only a year ago would have been given a loan at the drop of a hat. It's like the clocks have been turned back 15 years to a time when a mortgage wasn't a gimme, but a very serious home loan, which in fact may be no bad thing. However, the danger is the vicious circle this tightening of mortgage criteria results in.