Government’s Extension of Right to Buy "Will Cost Yorkshire Councils Nearly £49 Million Each"

Thursday, 5 May 2016 09:00

The average council in Yorkshire and The Humber will need to pay a staggering £49 million a year to the government to fund their flagship Right to Buy extension, new research by Shelter reveals.

The policy, now being put through parliament as part of the government’s Housing and Planning Bill, would it is claimed force local authorities to sell off a proportion of their council houses on the open market once they become vacant. The money would then be used to fund discounts of up to £100,000 for housing association tenants taking up the Right to Buy.

Shelter estimates that this could force the sale of 23,500 council homes across the country in just one year. Over three years this would be enough to house the entire population of Doncaster.

Shelter’s analysis estimated the value of council homes in each area that are likely to become vacant and compared this to the £4.5 billion per year needed by the government to fund the extension of Right to Buy. This process also reveals the councils that will be hit hardest by the sell-off.

Leeds tops the list, with the council needing to raise almost £129m per year from the sale of its council houses, followed by Sheffield (£120m) and Kirklees (£116m).

Shelter claims that most worryingly, the Housing Bill makes no commitment to replace the homes sold off like-for-like. This means that genuinely affordable homes in an area could be replaced by Starter Homes costing up to £250,000, or £450,000 in London. And with only one home replaced for every eight sold through the existing Right to Buy scheme, it’s likely that many won’t be replaced at all.

At a time when the government has pledged to fix our housing shortage, Shelter is warning that this policy risks further shrinking the supply of genuinely affordable homes.

Campbell Robb, Shelter’s Chief Executive, said: “With millions of families struggling to find a home they can afford, forcing councils to sell-off huge swathes of the few genuinely affordable homes they have left is reckless.

“Whilst the small number of lucky winners from this policy will understandably be grateful for the chance to buy their Housing Association property. Ultimately, far more people will lose out and be left with no choice but expensive, unstable private renting.

“The government is out of touch on this issue, and running out of time to help the millions of ordinary people in Yorkshire and The Humber crying out for a home that they can actually afford.”

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