Last month the Government published their response to the public consultation on proposed reforms to the Right to Buy scheme. The proposed reforms seek to enable the increased delivery of social housing across the country.
So what is ‘Right to Buy’?
The Right to Buy scheme was first introduced 45 years ago by the Housing Act 1980. It allows eligible council and, in some cases, housing association tenants in England, to buy their rented homes at a discount. The aim of the scheme is to help people achieve their dream of homeownership
Under the previous incarnation of the scheme, the purchasing of properties by long-term tenants led to a loss in assets for councils, thereby reducing the amount of capital revenues generated to reinvest in new affordable housing projects.
Proposed reforms
The proposed reforms seek to legislate the following:
- Increase the eligibility requirement (currently 3 years as a public secure tenant) to 10 years.
- Prevent existing property owners, or those that have previously benefitted from the scheme, from exercising the Right to Buy unless there are exceptional circumstances, e.g. victims of domestic abuse.
- Amend discount rules so that long standing tenants are rewarded.
- Exempt newly built social and affordable housing from the Right to Buy for 35 years.
- Increase the period from 5 years to 10 years that the council has the right to ask for repayment of all or part of the discount on the sale of property.
The overall aim of the above reforms is to incentivise councils to increase the delivery of affordable housing in order to meet the Government’s commitment to building 1.5 million homes in the current parliament. The reforms also propose for the increase in protection for long-standing tenants to allow them to be able to own their own homes in due course and to minimise the bureaucratic implications for local authorities.
Whilst much of the detail is yet to be ‘ironed out’ in terms of what the proposed reforms will mean in practice, for both tenants and councils alike, it is clear that recent announcements by the government have sought to address the key issues affecting the social housing sector.
In terms of next steps, the government will amend the legislation governing the use of Right to Buy receipts to simplify the rules and ensure that a greater proportion of receipts are used to deliver new social and affordable housing. In addition, the Government intends to permit councils to combine Right to Buy receipts with grant funding for social and affordable housing to accelerate delivery of replacement homes.
Legislation will also be brought forward to formalise and bring into law the changes set out above.
Jake Farmer
Associate Planner – DLP Planning
BA (Hons) AssocRTPI AISEP
07867 171786
jake.farmer@dlpconsultants.co.uk
dlpconsultants.co.uk
linkedin.com/dlp-planningltd
Boosting the delivery of affordable housing
This consultation response summary comes in the wake of the Summer Spending Review announcement earlier this year which contained a £39 billion boost in funding the delivery of affordable housing.
It should be noted that the £39 billion is to be spread over the next 10 years, thereby providing funding of £3.9 billion per annum. When you consider the number of social housing providers that are seeking to tap into these funds, as of 15th July 2025 there were 1,625 providers on RSH’s register[1] of which, 196 were local authorities with the remainder private registered providers, equates to just shy of £2.5 million per registered provider per annum, in theory.
On the face of it, a fantastic amount of money. However, one should then consider what that funding would, in theory. be spent on. With soaring costs of construction, as well as the increased need for up-front capital to get through the planning stages and indeed the gateway processes of the Building Safety Act, these funds often do not stretch as far as initially thought.
Whilst a lot of what I have alluded to seems very ‘doom and gloom’ for the social housing sector, there is light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Looking at the numbers I have cited earlier, 1,625 registered providers in the UK as of July 2025, there are indeed a lot of providers looking to tap into Rachel Reeve’s pot of gold. What has been evident in the sector of late, is the innovation of registered providers adapting to the market, we have seen many Housing Associations merging with each other, building resilience, combining housing stock and resources.
There is also evidence of council’s themselves starting to build affordable housing, for example in London Borough of Enfield https://www.enfield.gov.uk/services/housing/housing-schemes .
While I have been critical of the practicalities of the recent government announcements, the Social Housing sector has responded positively to them, clearly seeking to continue to drive new provision of social housing across the country over the next few years.
It remains to be seen how the sector will perform in the wake of these announcements. You will note that I have specifically stated ‘another key’ within the headline of this article. This is because increasing the delivery of affordable housing is a complex issue and there is no one solution, rather, it is an ongoing puzzle that requires multiple keys and solutions to open the ‘Pandora’s Box’.
