'We do now need to re-think Right to Buy'
The Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham has called for a suspension of the Right to Buy scheme, after claiming it was the reason the housing crisis had got “worse every year”.
In a bold and radical step, Burnham, who was re-elected as Mayor of Greater Manchester last week, has said that the Right to Buy scheme, which allows council tenants to buy their council home at a discounted price, should be suspended so that more social homes could be built across the country.
The latest figures from the Local Government Association show that in the last financial year, 10,896 homes were sold through Right to Buy and only 3,447 have been replaced, resulting in a net loss of 7,449 social homes in 2022/23.
In England, there are now 1.4 million fewer households in social housing than there were in 1980.
Burnham told BBC Breakfast this morning: “We lose social homes every year, and across Greater Manchester for the last year 500 social homes were lost.
“I’m saying to Whitehall and Westminster – you need to allow us to suspend Right to Buy from the new homes that we are building because if we don’t, trying to solve the housing crisis is like trying to fill a bath but with the plug out because you try and build new homes but you lose them at the other end and that just isn’t going to work.
“We do now need to re-think Right to Buy, it’s about suspending it not ending it, but we can’t be in a situation where the housing crisis just gets worse and worse every year, as we lose those homes that people can truly afford.”
Burnham has pledged to build 10,000 council homes, with at least 1,000 in every borough.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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