Mayor's Right to Buy-back sees 1,500 homes return to council ownership

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has thanked boroughs for using his flagship Right to Buy-back scheme to bring more than 1,500 homes back into public ownership.

Since launching in July 2021, fourteen boroughs have been allocated £152m to purchase 1,577 market homes that have been (or will be) converted into affordable housing, either council homes let at social rent or homes to be let as accommodation for homeless households. This includes a total of 908 homes to be let at social rent levels, the cheapest affordable, council rents.

The Mayor is also determined to give boroughs the expertise and resources they require to build the council homes Londoners need. He has therefore made £1m in revenue funding available to help boost uptake of this programme through his Right to Buy-back revenue fund and a further £4m fund to help boroughs unlock land for council homes.

Right to Buy, part of the 1980 Housing Act, gave council tenants who had lived in their house for more than three years the chance to buy their property at a price substantially below market rate. Since the Act’s introduction more than 300,000 London council homes have been sold.

The number of replacement council homes that were funded with Right to Buy receipts in London over the last decade (around 14,000) is lower than the total number of homes sold through Right to Buy over the same period (around 23,000). This fundamentally undermines efforts to tackle London’s housing crisis.

The Mayor smashed his previous target of starting 10,000 new City Hall-funded council homes earlier this year. Sadiq now aims to start a further 10,000 homes in a significantly shorter time - a total of 20,000 new City Hall-backed council homes by 2024.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan said: “For more than 40 years, London’s precious council homes have been disappearing into the private sector, often never to be replaced. As Mayor I have maintained a relentless focus on stemming the tide and replenishing London’s social housing stock.”

Damien Egan, mayor of Lewisham, said: “The Right to Buy-back scheme is already making a big difference in Lewisham, with families moving into their new homes. Thanks to funding from the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, we have been able to bring these homes back into public ownership, helping to house families on our housing waiting list, many of whom have had years waiting in hostels and B&Bs.”

Councillor Tom Bruce, cabinet member for regeneration and development at Hounslow Council, said: “We are delighted to be working with the Mayor of London on this fantastic scheme. With 188 languages spoken in the borough, Hounslow is a diverse community that has proud history of supporting refugees.”

“We recently purchased fifteen properties for Afghan refugees under this scheme and we look forward to them becoming proud residents of Hounslow.”

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