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Right to Buy proposals don’t go far enough, says sector
Government proposals to provide councils with extra freedom over Right to Buy receipts do not go far enough, sector bodies have said.
Ministers published a consultation on the rules around how money raised through selling council homes can be used in August, alongside the Social Housing Green Paper.
It came after the government began falling behind on its pledge to replace homes sold through the policy on a one-for-one basis.
Suggested tweaks included extending the deadline to use existing receipts from three years to five and allowing councils to use them to cover a greater proportion of building costs in “high affordability pressure” areas.
Currently councils are only allowed to pay 30% of the cost of the new build with Right to Buy receipts, and must source the remaining 70% from elsewhere.
This element of the policy, dubbed the ‘receipts-use cap’, was designed to stretch the funding to as many homes as possible, but has been widely criticised by councils for hampering their efforts to deliver replacements.
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The Local Government Association (LGA), the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) and the National Federation of ALMOs (NFA) all welcomed the consultation, but said the proposals “do not go far enough” to replace homes sold through the Right to Buy.
The LGA said it was “disappointing” that some of the suggested measures would only apply to “areas defined by such a narrow definition of affordability”.
It said the condition “prevents countless councils ready to build now, and it prevents the half a million families on council waiting lists in those areas from benefitting”.
The CIH, which began calling for the suspension of the Right to Buy in June, expressed disappointment that the consultation did not suggest letting councils keep all Right to Buy sales money and said its proposals “fall well short of what is required to achieve genuine one-for-one replacement”.
The NFA said it was “very concerned” at the prospect of the receipts-use cap being lifted in high affordability pressure areas only and said Right to Buy discounts “need to be reduced back to sensible levels”.
All three organisations, as well as the Association of Retained Council Housing (ARCH), said the receipts-use cap should include both existing and future receipts.
And the LGA, NFA and ARCH opposed the government’s proposal to scrap the one-for-one replacement commitment and instead suggested using a new, “broader measurement” of social housing supply, including housing association stock.
ARCH said ministers “should be open and transparent about specific plans for council and housing association housing”, while the LGA warned this “could be seen as a tacit admission that the [Right to Buy] replacement policy has failed”.
