| Report on historical right-to-buy policies 13:38 - Aug 3 with 668 views | StokieBlue |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/03/right-to-buy-england-fuelled-hou
"Calculating the “opportunity cost” of the sales, Common Wealth said the former council homes were now worth an estimated £430bn after taking account of inflation and the surge in property prices since 1980.
Of this sum, the thinktank said £194bn represented the value that was effectively given away when the homes were sold at a discount. Between the years 1980-81 and 2023-24, the discount averaged 43% on the prevailing market price."
That's approximately the cost of running the entire NHS for a year.
SB |  | | |  |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 13:45 - Aug 3 with 624 views | J2BLUE |
Our political system encourages short term thinking. Not justifying the sale because selling any national asset we need is a stupid idea. See also: Brown selling the gold for less than 10% of what it is worth now. |  |
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| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 13:59 - Aug 3 with 578 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
I can understand the logic of the right-to-buy schemes but there should have been a requirement for councils to reinvest the money into maintaining levels of housing stock. Of course, the political motivation was to remove public ownership and drive the private sector instead. |  |
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| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 14:00 - Aug 3 with 576 views | Churchman |
Thank you for posting this.
I thought it was insane at the time. Council Housing was part of the balance of housing provision in this country, particularly after the war. It was very successful not only in providing much better housing for former slum dwellers (such as my grandmother/mother) but also helped peg private renting costs and sat alongside those buying flats and homes.
When Thatcher decided on this insane giveaway, my mate stood as guarantor for his mother’s three bedroom house in Orpington in about 1987/88 the cost being £17,000. Sadly his mum died a couple of years later and it was sold for well in excess of £100,000.
The housing stock that was left after right to buy was more often than not the unsaleable rubbish. The current mess was entirely predictable but that hag and her feeble witted flunkeys didn’t give a hoot. Jam today, f tomorrow.
Is it any wonder we have a crisis in just about everything with the ineptitude of governments over RTB, utilities, PFI, flogging off of every public asset including government buildings?
This insanity forgets the key point - you can only sell an asset once. |  | | |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 14:09 - Aug 3 with 526 views | Meadowlark |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 14:00 - Aug 3 by Churchman |
Thank you for posting this.
I thought it was insane at the time. Council Housing was part of the balance of housing provision in this country, particularly after the war. It was very successful not only in providing much better housing for former slum dwellers (such as my grandmother/mother) but also helped peg private renting costs and sat alongside those buying flats and homes.
When Thatcher decided on this insane giveaway, my mate stood as guarantor for his mother’s three bedroom house in Orpington in about 1987/88 the cost being £17,000. Sadly his mum died a couple of years later and it was sold for well in excess of £100,000.
The housing stock that was left after right to buy was more often than not the unsaleable rubbish. The current mess was entirely predictable but that hag and her feeble witted flunkeys didn’t give a hoot. Jam today, f tomorrow.
Is it any wonder we have a crisis in just about everything with the ineptitude of governments over RTB, utilities, PFI, flogging off of every public asset including government buildings?
This insanity forgets the key point - you can only sell an asset once. |
ALL of the problems in UK society can be traced back to that hag! |  | | |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 14:14 - Aug 3 with 512 views | blueasfook |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 14:09 - Aug 3 by Meadowlark |
ALL of the problems in UK society can be traced back to that hag! |
Tony Blair's legacy left a few too. |  |
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| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 14:26 - Aug 3 with 480 views | andytown |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 13:59 - Aug 3 by Nthsuffolkblue |
I can understand the logic of the right-to-buy schemes but there should have been a requirement for councils to reinvest the money into maintaining levels of housing stock. Of course, the political motivation was to remove public ownership and drive the private sector instead. |
As far as I remember there was a law passed to prevent the funds being used to build new housing stock! |  | | |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 14:28 - Aug 3 with 471 views | nrb1985 |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 13:45 - Aug 3 by J2BLUE |
Our political system encourages short term thinking. Not justifying the sale because selling any national asset we need is a stupid idea. See also: Brown selling the gold for less than 10% of what it is worth now. |
Agree with this completely.
You simply cannot solve any of the huge structural issues facing the UK (and Europe) with people who have to think in 5 year cycles. | | | |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 15:16 - Aug 3 with 378 views | ronnyd |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 14:28 - Aug 3 by nrb1985 |
Agree with this completely.
You simply cannot solve any of the huge structural issues facing the UK (and Europe) with people who have to think in 5 year cycles. |
That's the problem with a democracy.  | | | |
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| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 15:40 - Aug 3 with 337 views | Freddies_Ears |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 13:59 - Aug 3 by Nthsuffolkblue |
I can understand the logic of the right-to-buy schemes but there should have been a requirement for councils to reinvest the money into maintaining levels of housing stock. Of course, the political motivation was to remove public ownership and drive the private sector instead. |
The political motivation was to turn labour-voting Council renters into homeowning Tory voters. It worked, and was arguably the most successful gerrymandering policy of all time. | | | |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 16:42 - Aug 3 with 240 views | You_Bloo_Right |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 14:26 - Aug 3 by andytown |
As far as I remember there was a law passed to prevent the funds being used to build new housing stock! |
It was Thatcher's fallacious reasoning that council, even national, budgets could be run like a household's - so any funds incoming from RTB had to be used to pay off any debt. Only when/if "debt free" were councils allowed to use the income to fund more housing.
Something like that anyway. |  |
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| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 17:06 - Aug 3 with 194 views | mellowblue |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 13:59 - Aug 3 by Nthsuffolkblue |
I can understand the logic of the right-to-buy schemes but there should have been a requirement for councils to reinvest the money into maintaining levels of housing stock. Of course, the political motivation was to remove public ownership and drive the private sector instead. |
that is the key point, the money should have been invested and the houses were sold at too high a discount and still were until the scheme ceased. On a positive note many people who otherwise would have had no opportunity, were grateful at the time to be able to buy their own home. It has also de-stigmatized the concept of council estates as now they are mixed ownership and aren't just for the poorer of their communities. | | | |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 17:27 - Aug 3 with 172 views | Churchman |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 17:06 - Aug 3 by mellowblue |
that is the key point, the money should have been invested and the houses were sold at too high a discount and still were until the scheme ceased. On a positive note many people who otherwise would have had no opportunity, were grateful at the time to be able to buy their own home. It has also de-stigmatized the concept of council estates as now they are mixed ownership and aren't just for the poorer of their communities. |
With balanced housing provision, you could save and buy your own home if you wanted to and earned enough. That is precisely what my parents did - they actually had one of the first houses on Hawthorne Drive before his job took him to the South Coast after my sister came into the world and he had enough by then for a Deposit.
Some people prefer renting. By getting rid of the decent housing stock, how are those who can’t afford to buy or don’t wish to going to go about it? Private landlords. Whoopee.
To quote the internet council housing came about ‘to address the severe housing shortages and poor living conditions prevalent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries’. A lot of it was constructed post WW1.
It included my grandparents and family who were moved from the Yarmouth Rows in the 1920s to an area near Caister called Newtown. Pokey, gloomy, no running hot water or inside toilet until the mid/late 60s it was light years better than what they’d known.
Clearly the Thatcher and her toadies never bothered to ask the question of why council housing came about in the first place. They just cracked on with their bogus ideology that the private sector will provide come what may. Money in the bank and votes in the ballot box. Boom! Idiots. [Post edited 3 Aug 17:30]
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| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 17:52 - Aug 3 with 117 views | DJR |
| Report on historical right-to-buy policies on 15:40 - Aug 3 by Freddies_Ears |
The political motivation was to turn labour-voting Council renters into homeowning Tory voters. It worked, and was arguably the most successful gerrymandering policy of all time. |
And to further that cause, spurious rules were put in place to prevent council housing stock being replaced because that would only encourage people they thought wouldn't vote Tory. [Post edited 3 Aug 18:07]
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