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Right to Buy sales drop off, latest government figures reveal
Right to Buy sales of council homes have dropped in recent months, the latest government figures reveal.
There were 2,601 homes sold between April and June this year, a 23% drop from the 3,382 sold in the same three months in 2016. However, a number of councils with large numbers of homes did not report their sales figures.
The Department for Communities and Local Government estimated these councils had around 350 sales between them taking the total sold to 2,951 – a 13% drop on last year.
London councils sold an estimated 503 homes – a steep 45% drop from the 921 sold in the same period last year. The proportion of sales in London has decreased over the past year, with only 19% of total sales coming form London compared to 27% last year.
It means councils have sold a total of 57,521 homes since discounts were raised by David Cameron in 2012.
The drop in sales was reflected in a drop in receipts, with councils collecting £219.5m in the latest quarter, compared to £285m last year.
In the same three months councils started building 903 replacement Right to Buy homes, a 27% increase on the 714 homes started in the same three months last year, but a decrease on the last three quarters.
The government pledged to replace all additional homes sold as a direct result of the larger discounts introduced in 2012 within three years. DCLG said there has been 13,623 Right to Buy replacement starts and acquisitions since 2012-13, and it calculates the target for replacement of additional properties to be 12,834 - meaning it is extremely close to officially breaking its pledge.
