Reply To: Is it time Right to Buy was stopped

[kaz]

I don’t think ‘right to buy’ at rates discounted in proportion to rent already paid is in and of itself a bad thing, potentially it’s a powerful tool for delivering security to families and for developing more socially mixed housing areas. That said the implementation as it exists seems a cynical and harmful piece of the austerity program used to asset strip local authorities (often Labour areas suffering greatest losses) for the benefit of central government and the continuation of their ideological agenda. That situation needs fundamental reform. Also I think that with the right to buy should come some responsibilities placed upon those who take up that right, perhaps: time limited rent control on the property and first refusal to the local council/housing association at discounted rates when the property is sold, again time limited. To my mind that strikes a reasonable balance between the interests of those in the properties and the wider public. I should add I think the sell-off should be stopped until councils are able and compelled to reinvest in a timely fashion the full amount derived from the sale in replacement stock while ever there is a shortage of social housing in the area.