Higher Value council sell-off

The government is proposing to force local authorities to sell 'higher value' council homes in order to fund the extension of Right to Buy to housing association tenants. A recent amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to demand that any council sell a yet to be defined proportion of their vacant stock.

This analysis finds that in order to raise the £4.5bn per year needed - as calculated by the Conservatives - each local authority could be asked to raise an average of £26 million.

In total, this corresponds to the sale of 23,503 council homes per year - six times more than was estimated would be sold under the previous threshold regime.