Council housebuilding plan thrown into disarray by Right to Buy surge

Andy Burnham’s promise of the biggest council housebuilding programme since the post-war period will be undermined for years by an extended surge in Right to Buy sales, as councils struggle with a backlog of applications. Tens of thousands of tenants applied to buy their council homes after the discounts on offer under the scheme were cut in 2024, fuelling a 90 per cent jump in sales last year to 14,275. The Government expected sales to drop dramatically after the initial surge, allowing councils to start building thousands more homes than they lost through the Right to Buy. But because of the backlog, The i Paper has found that sales did not slow to the 1,650 annually the Government expected, and councils are on track to sell five times that number this year and three times as many in 2027-28. Shorts Local authorities in London, and major towns and cities in the Midlands, Yorkshire, and the South West will be hit the hardest by this extended rise in sales, with councils still working their way through thousands of applications. Housing experts welcomed the 2024 reduction in discounts but said the new data showed that the Housing Secretary, Angela Rayner, would have a “leaky housing bucket” for years. The i Paper analysis of council papers and responses shows that more than 14,000 homes will be sold this year and next against the 10,450 replacements the Government predicts over the same period. Birmingham expected to sell 1,500 homes this year but has managed just 314, with 5,000 queued up and 100 new applications arriving each month as it considers recruiting more lawyers to help clear its backlog. Wolverhampton council said it had a “high number” of applications awaiting a decision from the district valuer, part of HM Revenue & Customs’ Valuation Office Agency, which helps to assess the value of homes before sale. Leeds forecasts 1,150 Right to Buy sales over the next two years. Sheffield expects to sell 420 homes over the same period after receiving an “unusually high” number of applications before the cut to discounts was put in place. “As a result, Right to Buy applications and sales are being processed across several financial years,” a spokesperson for Sheffield said. “The council, along with stock-holding local authorities from across the country, has called on the Government to enact further restrictions to the Right to Buy scheme so we can protect this vital resource for future generations.” Other councils told The i Paper they had “significant concerns” about the loss of their homes as they continued to process applications. Two authorities – Hull and Gateshead – said they have lost much-needed family-sized homes through the Right to Buy surge. Councils can keep the income from sales and have been told they should “quickly” deploy it to build replacements, the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government said. The Government’s Right to Buy reforms would give councils “breathing space” to replace the homes they lost, a spokesperson added. But Caroline Jackson, leader of Lancaster City Council said that asking councils to pay for replacements with sales receipts was “specious”. “There is a big percentage of local authorities which are struggling to use the receipts from Right to Buy to replace homes lost through Right to Buy,” she said. “It takes the income from three homes to replace just one new home and there is no top-up funding from Government.” Alistair McIntosh, chief executive of Housing Quality Network, a consultancy which advises councils on Right to Buy, said the surge in sales had made a “mess” of the Government’s ambitions to boost supply. “Right to Buy can help people who are relatively poor to get their foot on the ladder, but it is a hole in the bucket of housing supply,” he said. “We are losing homes quicker than we are building them. It isn’t getting families out of bed & breakfasts.” Following the 2024 reduction in discounts, the Government is planning further restrictions in the Social Housing Bill, which it says will further reduce sales. A spokesperson for the housing ministry said its overhaul of Right to Buy will result in “more social homes [being] built than sold over the next decade… We will also get councils building again by investing £39bn in social and affordable homes, prioritising social rent homes and council housebuilding”.