Right-to-buy loss

The proposals by the Westminster government to re-introduce the right-to-buy scheme for council tenants (your report, 10 March) is worth a closer look.

Here’s an example of how it works. Mrs Jones lived in her three-bedroom council house in York for 20 years, at which point it is valued at £100,000. She is paying £200 a month in rent to the council. She buys the house using the maximum discount allowed of £24,000, so she purchases the house for £76,000.

Six years later, Mrs Jones passes away and her family sells the house to Mr Private Landlord for £100,000. He converts it into a four-bed property and, due to the shortage of affordable housing, he then rents it to a young couple with three children who receive the maximum local housing allowance of £600 per month.

So what’s the net result? Well, Mrs Jones’s children are up £24,000. The council has a lost a property to the private sector that it could have rented out to a working family at an affordable rent and it is down £600 a month in rent. Mr Private Landlord is up £600 a month.

We could almost forgive the Tories the first time they introduced the right-to-buy scheme, but to reintroduce the policy is just plain stupid.

Andrew S R Gordon

Craiglockhart View

Edinburgh