The £200 billion injected into the financial system to boost lending has not filtered through to Britain's small and medium-sized businesses, a survey has claimed.

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC,) said 33% of companies reported that accessing loans had become more difficult over the past three months. In June, this was 20%.

The survey reports that only 3% of firms believed their situation had improved, while 64% were of the opinion that nothing had changed. 18% of those interviewed named lack of credit as their main concern.

As well as battling with lending constraints, the 400 businesses questioned in the survey, were gloomy about general trading conditions.

The study found that 64% of participants said their biggest barrier to growth over the next 12 months was the lack of customer demand.

BBC Director-general David Frost, said: "Our latest survey results show that the biggest issue facing British businesses is still demand for products and services. This means that any economic recovery is still fragile."

He added: "It is clear that the huge sums that have been injected into the financial system by quantitative easing are still not reaching small and medium-sized businesses in anything like the scale required for business to invest for future success.”