Four in 10 council properties offered below Right to Buy owned by personal landlords

More than four in 10 council homes sold under the Right to Buy scheme are now owned by private landlords.

Research by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) found around 109,000 former council homes are now being let privately. The think-tank warned that tenants who would have previously been accommodated in social housing are now forced to rely on expensive, insecure and often poor-quality homes being let by private landlords.

NEF, which sent freedom of information requests to local authorities, found 86% of homes sold under the scheme in Brighton are now being privately rented. Milton Keynes also had a high proportion being privately let at 73%, while Dover is at 59%.

Since Right to Buy was introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, the proportion of social renters has almost halved from 31% of English households to 16% in 2022/23, according to the English Housing Survey.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham this week called on the government to “suspend” Right to Buy while social housing is built. The scheme allows tenants to buy their council home at a discount.

Hollie Wright, assistant researcher at the New Economics Foundation, said: “While many have benefited from it, we need to be honest about the devastating impact the right to buy scheme has had on our housing system. There are millions of people in this country who are denied access to safe, affordable, secure social homes, partly because of right to buy.”

Conor O’Shea, policy and public affairs manager at Generation Rent, said: “It is no surprise that the haemorrhaging of homes from the social sector to the hands of private landlords has been a failure for those who actually live there. More than a million households are waiting for a council home, while paying much higher rents to private landlords, often for homes in a much poorer condition than they’d have in social housing.

“In order to address the crisis in renting, we must keep homes in the social sector, and give councils the ability to build many more, to properly cater for the needs of the people who desperately need affordable and safe homes that are not being provided by private landlords.”

A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesman said: “Right to Buy has helped over 2 million social housing tenants to become homeowners. Local authorities can use money from sales and preferential borrowing rates to build new homes. Through our long-term plan for housing we are building the homes the country needs – with over 696,100 new affordable homes, including 172,600 for social rent, built since 2010.”