'The government should end restrictions on use of Right to Buy receipts'

  • By JackGraves

A new report - Right to Buy: Wrong for London, which has been published by Tom Copley AM - suggests that London boroughs spend £22 million each year renting homes that were sold under Right to Buy. 

Commenting on the report, Cllr Darren Rodwell, London Councils’ Executive Member for Housing & Planning, said:

“London boroughs do everything we can to find accommodation for homeless families, but we’re doing this in the context of a chronic lack of affordable homes and continuing restrictions on councils’ ability to boost provision of social housing.

“These figures reveal the immense costs and inefficiencies caused by misguided policy at a national level. And with boroughs enduring a 63% cut in core funding since 2010, it’s clear we can’t carry on like this.

“The government should end its restrictions on the use of Right to Buy receipts so that all money raised from council house sales in London goes back into building more homes. We can’t keep relying on increasingly expensive private sector accommodation – instead, we need to increase investment in social housing.”

ENDS