Owner-occupancy 'the best form of social housing'
A massive expansion of the Right to Buy looks set to be the centrepiece of the Conservatives' new vision for housing.

In the Tories' first major foray into housing policy for more than two years, new shadow environment secretary John Redwood revealed the party is looking at radical plans to encourage hundreds of thousands more social housing tenants to buy their own homes.

In a blunt message for social housing providers, he told Housing Today:- "Owner occupancy is the best form of social housing.

"We are looking at expanding Right to Buy and are certainly looking at good schemes to encourage people without so much money to get onto the ladder of home ownership."

The Wokingham MP suggested owner-occupancy could soar from its current 70 per cent level to as much as 90 per cent.

He said: "In my own constituency home ownership is over 90 per cent and I would say we are rather well housed so we know that you can operate like that. Now, some would say that is because I've got higher average earnings than some parts of the country - but that is where we want to get to."

In the 1980s, some one million council tenants bought their home under right-to-buy, but its popularity has declined significantly in recent years. Redwood said firm policies did not need to be in place before the next election but the ideas are likely to be debated at the party's conference in the autumn.

Labour dismissed Redwood's ideas as "nonsensical". Margaret Moran, MP for Luton South and chair of the Labour Housing Group said: "This sounds like a housing policy for Mars - it doesn't sound like one for this world."

"How does it address some of the northern areas where homeowners are abandoning their homes simply because they have no value in them at all?" she asked.

Jim Coulter, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said the owner-occupancy rate was near its maximum and any move to increase it significantly could prove unsustainable. "If it is owner-occuapancy for owner-occupancy's sake then he is repeating the mistakes of the past," he said.

The Chartered Institute of Housing questioned the policy in the light of the Tory party's traditional role as the 'party of choice'. Policy manager David Fotheringham said: "It seems strange that the party of choice should be keen on restricting the availability of quality, affordable rented property."

Source

Housing Today