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Less than half of £4.8bn Right to Buy receipts used for replacement housing
Less than half the £4.8bn raised through selling off council housing at giant discounts since 2012 has gone to replacement housing.
Data provided to Inside Housing under the Freedom of Information Act shows 47.4% of the cash raised through the sale of 63,518 council homes since 2012 has been put aside for replacement housing.
The remaining £2.57bn has been split between the Treasury, the repayment of historic council debts and the administration of the scheme.
In total, the Treasury has taken £920m of the receipts (18.9%) while debt costs have absorbed just under £1.1bn (22.6%).
Answering a written question from Labour’s John Healey last week, housing secretary James Brokenshire had refused to release this data.
He said: “The department does not publish this information, because it quickly falls out of date.”
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Town halls have retained £380m while administration costs total £107m and councils have spent £50m buying back properties previously sold under the policy.
When David Cameron vastly increased Right to Buy discounts in 2012, he promised all additional homes sold would be replaced within three years.
Since then, councils have sold 63,518 homes and started 15,981 replacements, meaning the government has fallen short of this promise.
In March, housing minister Dominic Raab promised to consult on changes to the scheme as a result.
Councils have long called on ministers to forego the Treasury share and allow them to keep the full receipt to provide replacement housing.
John Bibby, chief executive of the Association of Retained Council Housing, said: “The last figures I saw showed the average receipt for a home sold under the Right to Buy is £84,000, which simply isn’t enough to build a social or affordable rented home to replace it.
“The recent announcement of a consultation on flexibilities is to be welcomed and we are anxiously awaiting its publication to see if it will do what we have been calling for, which includes allowing us to keep 100% of the receipt for replacement.”
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) initially declined to release this data, requiring Inside Housing to submit a Freedom of Information request to secure it.
A MHCLG spokesperson said:"This government remains committed to helping people get a foot on the housing ladder through the Right to Buy scheme.
"We will be consulting local authorities in the coming months on ways to increase their flexibility to replace homes sold, and will announce further details in due course."
