Agenda item

QUESTION NO.3 FROM A MEMBER REGARDING RIGHT TO BUY LEGISLATION

Minutes:

Councillor Huxley asked Councillor J. Bayford the following question:

 

“Under the current council housing Right To Buy legislation, TDC is only allowed to use approximately 33% of its council housing sales receipts to build new council homes in Thanet. Another 33% of each sale goes on administrative fees and servicing the debt in TDC's Housing Revenue Account, and the balance of the money (34%) goes back to the Treasury (central government). The Local Government Association is campaigning for all local councils in England to be allowed to keep 100% of the Right To Buy money, a policy initiative that all councils support. Given the acute shortage of social housing in Thanet, what is TDC's Cabinet doing to lobby the area's two MP's and the Secretary of State for Housing to achieve a reform of the scheme, so that 100% of council house sales receipts are retained by TDC?”

 

Councillor J. Bayford responded with the following points:

 

·  As Cabinet member with responsibility for housing, the council’s commitment to providing new affordable homes for rent to local people was fully endorsed, including new council homes. Since 2014 the council has built or acquired 147 new affordable homes for rent through its own programme. This represents a total investment of £26.5m.

·  TDC are committed to continuing this work, there had been an on-going programme of building funded through our Housing Revenue Account. HRA Business Plan projections suggest that TDC could continue to invest around £8.1m of capital funding per year over the coming 10 years, which included the use of recycled RTB receipts.

·  The critical importance of this investment, including the recycled use of Right to Buy receipts was set out in the council’s adopted Housing, Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy.

·  The council’s Housing Revenue Account Business Plan also recognised the negative impact that the RTB rules have on the long term viability of funding for the council’s housing stock and its ability to secure borrowing for investment in new homes.

·  These issues had been repeatedly raised with the government; there was support for the review of Right to Buy arrangements to enable full retention of the receipts locally and greater flexibility in their use.

·  The council responded to the 2020 Comprehensive Spending Review consultation, and specifically commented on the use of RTB receipts, requesting, ‘Relaxations of the restrictions on the use of right to buy receipts, enabling 100% of the receipt to be used locally for new homes and for this funding to meet a greater proportion of the costs of a new home over a longer timescale.’

·  On 25 February, Councillor Bayford personally wrote to the Minister for Housing setting out the urgent need for new affordable homes in the district and seeking a long term, stable funding arrangement for the delivery of affordable homes. The response, received on 1 July 2022, failed to commit to any new funding for affordable homes nor to councils retaining an increased proportion of RTB receipts. Councillor Bayford would be writing again to further press the point about 100% of RTB receipts being retained locally.

 

Councillor Huxley followed up her question by asking whether Councillor Bayford thinks the government’s plan to extend the right to buy legislation is a good policy and why?

 

Councillor J. Bayford responded that she thought the policy was a good idea. Unfortunately, some residents had to be housed outside the area as there were not houses available locally.