Social tenancy scheme falls short

A scheme to help social tenants buy their homes is likely to fall far short of its target to fund nearly 2,000 purchases over the next three years. Only 62 complete sales through the Social HomeBuy scheme we made between April and September this year, although the government has allocated £15.8 million between 2008-11, enough to fund the shared purchase of more than 1,800 homes for the same period. However, the figures revealed the economic downturn led to a surge in popularity for the Open Market Homebuy and the New Build Homebuy schemes.