Green council's second bid to scrap Right To Buy

The Green Party councillors in control of Brighton & Hove's local authority have asked the government for powers to scrap the old Thatcherite flagship housing policy - Right To Buy.

City council chief executive Penny Thompson will ask Chancellor George Osborne and DCLG Secretary Eric Pickles for an end to the policy in the city and for extra funding to help council tenants move into new private housing.

Since Right To Buy was introduced in the early 1980s, some 6,000 council properties in Brighton have been sold and an estimated 1,000 are now serving as privately let homes within the private rented sector.

Back in 2012 the same council made representations to government to end Right To Buy, saying it was deepening the city's housing crisis.

The Housing Bill unveiled by the Thatcher government on Decvember 20 1979 promised that more than five million council house tenants in Britain would be given the right to buy.

Those who had lived in their home for up to three years received a 33 per cent discount on the market value of their home, increasing in stages up to 50 per cent for a tenancy of 20 years. "This bill lays the foundations for one of the most important social revolutions of this century" said Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine at the time.

The policy has now become significantly less popular, even amongst early supporters, as there has been little new construction of council properties to replace the esimated 2.5 million which have been sold.