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The Right to Buy revolution still divides Britain’s estates, 30 years on

07/12/2023

Posted by:
Renata Watson

Thirty years ago this month – on 20 December 2023 – the new Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher published its housing bill, changing the social face of Britain with one of the most popular political promises in history: the Right to Buy.

Today the repercussions are still being felt. This year the number of council houses sold off passed the two million mark; so too did the numbers of people across Britain on waiting lists for a council house, up almost 10 per cent in a year.

Some inner-city areas would need decades to clear their backlog.

With house building all but stopped in a recession that has seen repossessions and unemployment rise, there is a crisis in Britain’s homes, and the finger of blame is pointed firmly at that ‘social revolution’ of 1979.

Tags: repossession, social housing, housing, recession, house building, Social housing, home, Recession, right to buy, conservative

Comments:

The Right to Buy legislation did not alter the number of properties built or available for occupation and therefore have nothing to do with the length of housing waiting lists.

This is due to squatting in Social Houses by those with lifetime tenancies who could well afford to purchase or rent privately,and to a lesser extent by the failure of an overblown social sector to concentrate on delivering good quality homes to those in genuine need in favour of speculating in land and acting as developers which they are not equipped to do.

Posted by alan thurlow on Monday 07 2009 at 05:27 PM

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