Right to Buy: What’s wrong with allowing people to buy social housing?

Labor metropolitan mayors in both Liverpool and Manchester have said they want more social housing to be built in their areas.

In May, Greater Manchester leader Andy Burnham called on the then Conservative government to halt RTB on new builds after losing 500 social homes to the scheme in 2022.

He argued that if the planned homes were bought by their tenants it would be “like trying to fill a bathroom without a plug”.

In Merseyside, almost all former council housing stock has been transferred to housing associations over the last two decades.

But metro mayor Steve Rotheram says registered social landlords (RSLs) have inherited some of the problems that came with RTB.

He said one Merseyside RSL had lost around a third of its homes through sales to tenants in the decade since the devolution of its housing stock.

People who are RSL tenants can purchase their home under the “protected” RSL if they lived in their home while the council owned it.

Someone can apply for the Right to Acquire after living in an RSL property for three years.

Rotheram said cheaper borrowing rates for RSLs and a moratorium on sales would help boost growth in social housing.

“You’re not going to build too many houses for someone to come in and buy them below market value in three or four years,” he says.

“How we deal with this is part of our growth plan going to government and we’re now trying to see if we can work with (Rayner) to put forward proposals.”

Blackpool Council’s cabinet member for economy and built environment, Mark Smith, makes it clear that although money from RTB sales is used to support a range of housing investments, the RTB revenues his council receives are “not enough to replace lost social rented housing”. .

Even with changes such as the government giving councils greater flexibility to allow RTB revenues to be used alongside cash from other streams, such as funds granted by developers obtaining planning permission for private schemes, he says there is still some red tape ahead. Using a combination of different types of financing to build council housing.

“We are doing the best we can within the parameters of the policy that currently exists, but there is always room for improvement,” he says.