Extending Right To Buy To Cost £6bn By 2020

Extending the Right to Buy to housing association tenants will cost £6 billion over the next four years as almost 100,000 households take up the offer. It is forecast that around 24,000 housing association tenants a year will buy their home with an average discount of £63,271 under the Right to Buy extension - the discount would cost £1.5 billion a year. The Local Government Association (LGA) is warning that the offer must not be funded by forcing councils to sell-off their social housing, which would drive up rents and the housing benefit bill and lower the capacity of councils to build more homes and tackle waiting lists. It is crucial that councils are able to retain 100 per cent of receipts from the sale of any council homes to reinvest in the desperately needed homes across the country. Read more on the LGA website.

‘Half-Baked’ Government Policy To Blame For Mass Council Housing Sell-Off

Sheffield city council has hit out after government figures revealed 749 council houses have been sold by Sheffield Council since 2012-13 but just 79 have been built to replace them – meaning 89 per cent of homes sold have not been replaced.  It is the third-highest sell-off rate of Right to Buy homes in England, according to the CLG. Jayne Dunn, cabinet member for housing at the council, said:  “It is a problem created by the Government, which does not give councils enough funding through receipts from Right to Buy to replace the stock that is lost. This is why we have called on the Government to allow us to fully re-invest money raised from sales in new council housing in the city, rather than having to hand over a sizeable proportion to the Treasury.”  Read more on the Sheffield Star website.