Conservative Action on Social Housing
At Wednesday 14th October’s meeting of Full Council, South Gloucestershire’s Conservatives highlighted a recent announcement from Party Conference that could have big impact in the local area.
At the Conference, Local Government Secretary Greg Clarke MP announced that the Right to Buy would be extended to the 1.3 million people who live in Housing Association properties. This would level the playing field between Housing Association tenants and others who are covered by the Right to Buy and allow more people to take more control and achieve their aspirations of owning their own homes.
This announcement also included an agreement struck with the National Housing Federation to a ‘one out, one in’ policy, wherein each house bought under the Right to Buy will be replaced by another Housing Association property, increasing the availability of social housing.
This follows previous announcements that the Government, having delivered 260,000 affordable homes since 2010, plans to use £38 billion of public and private investment to deliver another 275,000 affordable homes between now and 2020, the fastest rate of delivery ever.
Conservative Councillors agreed that the Council should write to Government for more details on this scheme, to better inform policymaking.
Speaking of the decision, Chair of the Adults, Housing and Public Health Committee Ben Stokes (Con, Boyd Valley) said: “we are keen to see social housing waiting lists fall and I can see that this ‘one out, one in’ policy will help us get them down. I look forward to hearing from Government about the finer details of this plan to better help us make housing policy and work with our partners such as Merlin.”