50,000 Right To Buy homes sold since 2012 but only 5,...

Government figures claim almost 50,000 households in council and other forms of social housing have taken up their Right To Buy since the controversial scheme was reinvigorated in 2012.

This means 291,000 households have now been helped to purchase a home through government backed schemes - which also include Help To Buy - since 2010.

The latest figures, which apply to England, show more than 3,000 people bought under the Right to Buy scheme between October and December and councils received £259m from sales of homes which will go towards building replacement homes.

The government claims that for every home sold under the Right to Buy a new affordable home is built; however, the government’s press release says that there have been only 5,000 starts.

‘We are determined that anyone who aspires to own their own home should have the opportunity to do so. These figures show people are still very keen to take up their Right to Buy and why we are now extending that opportunity to housing association tenants” says housing minister Brandon Lewis.

“Alongside this a thousand tenants are registering each week to join those who have already realised their dream to own their home” he says.

The 10 places where Right to Buy has been taken up most actively are Birmingham, Nottingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Wolverhampton, Southwark, Kingston Upon Hull and Barking.

Now Right to Buy will extend the discounts currently given to council tenants to some 1.3m housing association tenants; the government says over 25,000 housing association tenants have already registered their interest in taking up this option.