Councils in danger of not being able to replace Right to Buy homes locally

Published by 24publishing for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Central Government, Communities, Local Government

The housing minister Grant Shapps has warned councils they have until the end of this month to submit forms announcing their intention to build Right to Buy (RtB) replacements in their local area.

The reinvigorated scheme - which quadruples the discount cap in some part of the country - will see councils able to keep a proportion of the receipts to replace homes locally.

However, councils that wish to retain receipts for the first quarter of 2012/13, Mr Shapps warned, must sign up to the RtB agreement by Wednesday 27 June 2012.

Agreements can be signed after this date but will not cover receipts for Q1, according to the Government.

Ahead of his keynote address to the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) conference today, Shapps said he believed that just one application had been received.

He said today: "Councils have until the 27 June to send in a form to say they intend to build homes in their areas from Right to Buy."

He warned that if they don't those councils will be forced to send the receipts to the Homes and Communities Agency for national distribution.

He said: "Councils need to realise they've got a deadline. Very few have sent in their forms yet and they're in danger of not being able to build the homes in their own areas."

The Government says funds should account for no more than 30 percent of total investment in new homes - in place of Government funding. This, he said, is in line with the Affordable Homes Programme, which is expected to deliver up to 170,000 new affordable homes by 2015.

Shapps said: "We know from the Affordable Rent programme - massively oversubscribed. We could have built another 100,000 homes through the Affordable Rent programme it was that oversubscribed. So I know that if I can get some more cash through RtB receipts we can use that money to build these homes."