Right to buy policy 'trapped people'

Published on Monday 19 July 2010 14:13

THIRTY years after council tenants were given the right to buy their homes, new research by St Andrews University has found many owners still feel trapped in their neighbourhoods.

Academics said the key policy, which was introduced by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in 1980, had left many living in areas they were desperate to leave.

In the first analysis of its kind, researchers at the university studied the house-moving behaviour of social renters in the UK who exercised their right to buy compared with traditional owners and tenants.

The research showed right to buy failed to free up labour as hoped, with the mobility of owners who bought their council homes falling between that of social renters and traditional owners.

Dr Maarten Van Ham of the Centre for Housing Research at the university, said: "The right to buy has given many households access to home ownership, but not to better places, so what have they gained?

"It concerns me that many are stuck in the same house and the same neighbourhood."

However, others praised the legislation, saying it had helped to raise people out of poverty.

Scott Brown, senior partner at Scottish estate agent Warners, said: "It has allowed people to get on to the property ladder who rented previously.

"And after the three years they were required to stay after buying, many were able to sell the property and move on."

He said many profited after buying their homes at a 67 per cent reduction and some homes were now being bought back by councils at full market value.

He added: "There has been a negative effect on councils because some are now short of housing and have to buy the homes back at full value."

Since its inception in 1980, more than 2.7 million homes have been sold under the scheme, which promised to give those in social housing the right to move for job opportunities in other regions of the country.

Mary Mulligan, Labour's housing spokesman, said many who bought their homes had become the "bedrock of their communities". She said: "The problem we have now is that demand for rented accommodation is far outstripping supply."

She said providing more affordable homes to buy, and to rent, from local authorities and housing associations were crucial.

"We must therefore work with the private sector to reverse the decline in private housing and look at ways of investing in infrastructure to maximise public and private housing," she said.

In numbers

• 1980 was the year when the UK Conservative party introduced to the right of council tenants to buy the home they had been renting.

• 2.7 million council tenants have, since then, exercised their right to buy their home since the policy was introduced.

• 67 per cent is the discount some were able to receive on the market value of their home since the 1980 Housing Act was passed, with the level of discount dependent on how long the tenant had been living in the property.

• 30 years have passed since the introduction of the policy which changed the home-buying landscape dramatically.

• 10,000 households were studied as part of the latest research which accuses the policy of failing to free up people to relocate for work and move up the social ladder.

• 5 years is the minimum amount of time a tenant must be living in the council home before they are entitled to buy their council home today.

Conservative housing spokesman Alex Johnstone saw the policy as having been an "enormous success".

He added: "This report actually shows that social mobility improved for those who bought their home - and for many others gave them a chance to own and improve their home and stay in the neighbourhood of their choice.

"To argue that those who used right-to-buy were ‘trapped' is a political conclusion by the report's authors, not a logical conclusion borne out by the facts.

"Giving people the right to buy the home they had lived in, sometimes for decades, was a way of promoting mixed tenure neighbourhoods, which many experts believe is vitally important in providing the sustainable and cohesive communities that people want to live in."

John Dickie, of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland said: "Ensuring every family has a decent affordable home is crucial if we are serious about ending child poverty.

"It is vital that government invests in good quality family homes so that parents can take up employment opportunities where they can and no child is left in insecure or overcrowded housing."