News / Housing crisis
‘Right to Buy is incredibly damaging to Bristol’
The continued sale of council homes under Thatcher’s infamous Right to Buy policy has been slammed as one of the main causes of Bristol’s housing crisis.
Paul Smith, the cabinet member for housing, revealed that the number of council houses in the city has dropped from 49,000 at its peak, to 27,000, as he condemned the “incredibly damaging” scheme.
The comments, made at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, follows calls for England to halt the Right to Buy policy, which grants tenants the legal right to purchase their council home at a heavily discounted rate.
is needed now More than ever
Wales and Scotland have both suspended the scheme.
Recent Freedom of Information data, reported by The Guardian, revealed that 40 per cent of former council homes in London are now rented by private landlords and some councils have bought back their former homes at more than six times the amount they were sold for.
Cabinet papers state that Bristol City Council will earn £14.8m in revenue from Right to Buy properties in 2019/20 – most of which will be carried forward to help support the capital programme in future years.
Council housing stock in Bristol has dramatically reduced
Oliver Fortune raised the issue from the public gallery, saying: “The Right to Buy scheme is one of the main causes of the housing crisis we see before our eyes today.”
He asked if the council has any powers to prevent the policy operating in the city.
In response, Smith said: “You are right. The Right to Buy is incredibly damaging to this city. At its peak Bristol has 49,000 properties within the council housing estate and we now have 27,000.
“That has a huge impact on our ability to respond to the housing crisis and is indeed one of the causes of it.
“We are also seeing a huge number of properties transferring from tenants buying them to the private rented sector and becoming buy-to-let properties.
“It’s been sort of a two-step privatisation of things that should be in public ownership.”
Acknowledging that the policy has been suspended in Scotland and Wales, Smith continued: “I have looked to see if it’s possible to move the Welsh boundary slightly, apparently that is not available to us.”
Sheltered property for elderly people is not eligible for purchasing under the Right to Buy scheme, but Smith said this is one area in which the city is actually over-provided for in comparison to its overall stock, so isn’t an option to safeguard council homes.
“I will continue to call for the end or suspension of Right To Buy,” he said, adding: “I did raise the issue with a senior civil servant on Monday: about the issue of us building new homes just for them to be sold for less than their value, and that economically was a nonsense.”
Smith has asked the Government to, at least, change the cost floor calculation, which sets a time period and minimum level at which the discount for right to buy can be provided on new-build properties.
He said this is being looked at by ministers, but faces delays because of Brexit.
Meanwhile, the council is working on fulfilling its ambition to build new council homes and set up its own housing company in September last year.
Read more: ‘Council-owned company will help relieve housing pressures in Bristol’
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