Shelter warns Right to Buy will force sale of over 2000 Hackney homes
‘Absolute madness’: the government wants to extend Right to Buy to housing associations. Photograph: David Holt (Creative Commons)
Over 2,000 council homes in Hackney could be sold off to finance the controversial extension of the Right to Buy, according to homelessness charity Shelter.
The proposed scheme requires local authorities to sell off their most valuable council houses when they become vacant.
The money would then be used to fund new discounts of up to £100,000 for housing association tenants taking up the Right to Buy.
Under the proposals, a newly-built one bed home would have to be sold off if it was worth above £340,000, well below the average asking price of £426,920 for a 1 bed property in Hackney.
In Hackney, the charity estimates that 9.7 per cent of properties are above the government threshold – which equates to the forced sale of 2176 homes.
‘Absolute madness’
Shelter’s Chief Executive Campbell Robb has called for the government to scrap the scheme.
He said: “At a time when millions of families are struggling to find somewhere affordable to live, plans to sell off large swathes of the few genuinely affordable homes we have left is only going to make things worse.”
Campbell Robb, Chief Executive of Shelter. Photograph: Shelter
Hackney Council’s Cabinet Member for Housing, Cllr Philip Glanville, said the council’s own figures estimate that up to 700 homes could be lost in the first 5 years.
“Even using Shelter’s own figures, which sees us losing 59 lettings a year, this could mean a 5 per cent a year reduction in homes badly needed by homeless families,” said Glanville.
Glanville said it was “absolute madness” that hundreds of homes currently being built for social rent would also have to be sold off to pay for discounts on an “ill-thought out policy”.
GLA deal
According to a report by Inside Housing, the Greater London Authority (GLA) has tabled a deal in an attempt to ensure the Right to Buy extension would not lead to funds flowing out of the capital.
In exchange for the ring-fencing of receipts from the forced sale of council homes, the GLA would build approximately 15,000 additional homes, likely to be for low-cost home ownership.
Housing associations would then agree to use the receipts to build replacement homes in London as opposed to outside the capital.
Responding to the GLA offer, Glanville said: “We don’t need bad backroom deals, designed to get Boris off the political hook, over a policy that is deeply damaging to London.
“If this policy goes ahead we need to see is a real ring-fence, and the replacement of these sold homes with genuinely affordable housing for rent in boroughs like Hackney.
‘Champions of aspiration’
In total, Shelter calculated that 112,883 or around one in 14 council homes in England could face a forced sale.
According to the charity’s estimates, Camden would be the worst hit area in the capital with over 11,700 homes facing forced sale – equivalent to nearly 50 per cent of the borough’s total council housing stock.
Kensington & Chelsea could be forced to sell 97 per cent of their total, or over 6,600 homes.
Housing Minister Brandon Lewis has defended the policy, calling on housing associations to become to “champions of aspiration”.