Labour leadership front-runner Jeremy Corbyn says he would vote for a complete end to all forms of Right To Buy and would also support resisting development on the Green Belt.
In an interview in Red Brick, a left-wing housing blog, the MP for Islington North says Right To Buy - which has existed for decades for tenants of local authority properties and is now likely to be extended by the Conservative government to some housing association tenants too - has “eroded our social housing stock and directly contributed to the current housing crisis.”
He says social housing should not be converted to private wealth, and he calls for greater security of tenure for tenants of council houses and flats.
“We used to have security of tenure for council home tenants, meaning that despite not owning the property it was very much their home – in many cases for life. We should return to that” writes Corbyn.
He says he will vote against extending Right To Buy to housing association properties, and would favour ending the policy “full stop.”
The MP - one of four candidates standing for Labour leader - says he would be “very cautious” about changing any aspect of the Green Belt.
“Developers will nearly always argue for the release of Green Belt land because it is easier for them compared to developing brownfield sites. But we don’t simply want our towns sprawling outwards with reliance on cars growing – and the Green Belt has prevented that to a certain extent” he believes.
“Any widespread relaxations would also risk inflating the land values of Green Belt sites” he writes.
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Ending RTB? He's got my vote.
Finally, we have a potential Labour leader who talks and acts like a real person, one with principles and beliefs that he's stuck to for the last 30 odd years. He'll scare Osborne and Cameron something rotten.
I FOI'd every London Council. Just three years in to the new regime, they are already almost acheiving 1-4-1 replacement of every (occupied) home sold under Right to Buy, with one (unoccupied) home, available to let to those on waiting lists or in temporary accommodation. And that is using less than half the funds they have retained from RtB sales.
In fact if they keep going at the same pace, they will be able to provide 2.2 new, empty, ready to occupy homes, for every one, occupied, unavailable home they sell.
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