Dear Minister - Right to Buy

For Times of TW.

Your “Right to Buy’ Disaster!

An Open Letter to Greg Clark MP for Tunbridge Wells and Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government

Dear Mr Clark

            The groundwork has been done, the foundations are in and scaffolding is up, ready for building to begin.  After a gap of nearly twenty years our village is finally getting six new housing association rental homes.

            The trouble is, under your new ‘right to buy’ scheme they will quickly be eligible to be sold.  Let me tell you why this is a disaster.

            Mark was born and brought up in the village.  He went to the primary school on the Green. All his friends were here and he wanted to stay.  But we are near a desirable grammar school and close to a commuter station – so house prices are sky-high and rental properties scarce. Mark simply couldn’t afford to stay near his parents in his native village. 

            Gavin is a skilled local craftsman.  He’s had a small workshop in the village for the past 40 years.  He was living in shared ownership social housing until his recent divorce. His equity was too small to buy anywhere else and anyway, aged 60, who’d give him a mortgage? So he can’t buy and can’t afford the private rental sector.  He’s now effectively homeless, on the waiting list for one of the very few Housing Association properties around.

            I won’t bore you with the details of how we, on the Parish Council, found the land and fought for the six new homes to be built.  But it’s taken three years, involved labyrinthine planning and legal problems, and incurred the ire of many residents who don’t want any new building, let alone Housing Association homes.  The truth is that there’s next to no building land available round here.  We’re an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty so getting planning permission for anything outside the village ‘envelope’ is virtually impossible. Any brownfield site within it is gobbled up by private developers.

            So there is barely concealed laughter when we hear you say, “receipts from selling an owner’s current property will help build replacement affordable homes on a one-for-one basis … in the same area”.  Not in this area it won’t.

            To see how ludicrous is this policy, let’s start by considering who is this ‘owner’ being forced to sell at a discount? Well, it’s a Housing Association.  Not a public body, but a private company. Maybe a not-for-profit company, or a charity, but it’s still private.  How would you feel if you were a private landlord and your government suddenly announced your tenants would have a right to buy your house at below market value?  You’d be hopping mad.  As the Housing Associations are.  And this from a Tory government!  To me it smacks of Stalinism.  The State forces private owners to sell their property.  Really? 

            Anyway it’s probably illegal.  Housing Associations are planning to challenge you under the European Convention on Human Rights, which gives people the “right to the peaceful enjoyment of one’s possessions”.  Oh, but hang on your government is planning to remove us from the Convention. So any subsequent British Bill of Rights won’t contain an entitlement to such enjoyment?  That will please the backbenchers won’t it?

            Your proposals are probably also illegal because charities, including many housing associations, are generally prohibited from selling their assets at below market value.  So that could involve more legislation to remove another fundamental principle.

            Now, about this discount, fine for the tenants who are effectively being handed a huge subsidy from the public purse – sorry there is no public purse, there is only your and my taxes isn’t there? Actually I’m rather in favour of redistributing wealth, but I can’t help thinking that you and your party may not be!

So you say: “To fund this policy the Housing Bill will also require councils to sell their most expensive housing when it falls vacant”.  Sorry, did I hear right?  What expensive property do councils still have? Two million homes have already been sold.  Councils were told they couldn’t run the housing stock they had left, so were forced to hand it over to Housing Associations or ALMOs – Arms Length Management Associations.  And even with your government’s new more generous discounts what makes you think that these remaining ‘council’ houses either can or will be sold?  And when?

            So to summarise:  Your shiny new right to buy policy is probably illegal. Councils don’t control the properties you say they must sell.  Anyway they wont be sold till they fall vacant which could be years down the line. So tax payers are likely to pay for the discounts. In villages up and down the country there is no land to build new social houses to replace the ones you’ve sold.  For people like Mark and Gavin it means real personal hardship. For our community it’s a tragedy.  As a public policy it’s a disaster.

Yours sincerely

Kent Barker