Council set to repurchase right-to-buy properties

Housing chiefs have unveiled plans to repurchase properties sold off under the Right to Buy scheme in bid to stave off the increasingly acute housing crisis.

Up to 100 properties will be brought back into public ownership under the ‘Right to Buyback’ programme, with the aim of housing the first local families by March next year.

The borough is also expected to home 100 Afghan refugees who have fled their homeland since it was taken over by the Taliban.

Launched in 1980, Right to Buy was a central plank of the Premiership of Margaret Thatcher, affording council tenants the opportunity to purchase their homes outright for a significantly discounted price.

Damien Egan, Mayor of Lewisham, said: “Right to Buy has had a terrible impact on the supply of social housing in London, with hundreds of thousands of council homes lost since its introduction.

“By bringing these properties back into public ownership, we can provide much-needed homes for families on our housing waiting list.”

The original Right to Buy scheme has increasingly eroded local authorities’ social housing stock as they have been unable to build or buy suitable homes at the same rate as they were sold under the Conservative Party policy.

There are currently more than 10,000 families on Lewisham’s housing register, underscoring the urgent need to increase the supply of social housing in the South-East London borough.

The annual UK Housing Review conducted in March revealed only 6,566 social homes were constructed in England between 2019-2020, while 10,569 were sold off under Right to Buy: a shortfall of more than 4,000 affordable homes.

In England alone, local authorities lost some 1.86 million council homes between 1980 and 2020.

Alongside the Buy-back programme, an additional 20 properties will be purchased to facilitate the resettlement of Afghan refugees.

As the UK’s first Borough of Sanctuary, Lewisham aims to relocate 100 Syrian, Afghan and other fleeing refugee families in the most ambitious refugee resettlement scheme in the capital.