The government should allow bigger discounts to tenants who want to buy their council homes, a leading housing academic has said.
The government has capped the discounts at £16,000 for 41 English local authorities.

But professor Steve Wilcox of York University said the caps should be relaxed as they made no long-term difference to the available stock of social housing.

Wilcox was referring to evidence contained in the 2003/04 UK Housing Review on the Right to Buy, which he edited. He said the ODPM should instead allow the 41 authorities to retain more of the funds raised through selling the homes to build replacements.

He said that new measures contained in the Housing Bill that is passing through parliament, such as lengthening the right to buy's tenancy qualification period, would minimise abuses of the process. "Once the primary legislation is in place, there is no longer a rationale for the caps to persist," he said. "There is simply no economic or financial case for them to remain."

Wilcox, however, maintained the right to buy was "good value to the public purse".

Source

Housing Today