Councils given power to build more homes

Councils in England will have more freedom on how they spend the money from homes sold through Right to Buy, to help them build the homes needed in their communities, under reforms announced 20 March 2021 by Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick.

Today’s package will make it easier for councils to fund homes using Right to Buy receipts, including homes for social rent, and give them greater flexibility over the types of homes they provide to reflect the needs of their communities.

It will also give councils more time to use receipts and to develop ambitious building programmes. The government wants homes supplied using Right to Buy receipts to be the best value for money, and to add to overall housing supply, to help towards delivering 300,000 new homes a year across England by the mid-2020s. This set of reforms, combined with the abolition of the borrowing cap in 2018, gives councils substantially increased flexibilities to build the homes England needs.

These changes take effect from 1 April 2021, with the exception of a new acquisition cap, which will be introduced from 1 April 2022, on a phased basis.

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said:  “Councils have a crucial role to play in increasing housing supply, including building more affordable and social housing.

“I have listened to local authorities who responded to our consultation on the use of Right to Buy receipts and I am delighted to announce a package of reforms providing authorities with the flexibilities they need to develop ambitious build programmes and help get people on the housing ladder.”

Cllr James Jamieson, Local Government Association Chairman, said: “The LGA has long-called for reform to Right to Buy and we are pleased government has engaged with us and acted on councils’ concerns.

“Extending the time limit for spending Right to Buy receipts and increasing the proportion of a new home that councils can fund using receipts will boost councils’ ability to build desperately-needed affordable housing for local communities.

“We now look forward to working with government to implement these reforms and it is good it will work through any specific local challenges some councils may face as a result of the acquisitions cap.”

Further information

New measures include:

• extending the time councils have to spend Right to Buy receipts from three years to five years
• increased cap on the percentage cost of new homes councils can fund from Right to Buy receipts raised from 30% to 40% per home, making it easier to build replacement homes
• allowing receipts to be used for shared ownership, First Homes, as well as affordable and social housing, to help councils build the homes their communities need
• introducing a cap on the use of Right to Buy receipts for acquisitions to help drive new supply.

On 14 August 2018, alongside the Green Paper, A New Deal for Social Housing, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published a consultation on how local authorities could use the receipts they obtained from sales of council housing under the Right to Buy to deliver replacement homes, and how those replacements were measured.

View the original consultation paper.

We received a total of 198 responses to the consultation, which we have analysed to inform the package of reforms. Read our published response.

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