Final ‘Right to Buy’ house sold

The final sale of a Stirling council house under the controversial Right to Buy scheme has been completed, almost four years after the system was scrapped.

The UK Right to Buy policy, allowing council tenants to buy their homes at a discount, was introduced in 1980.

It ended in Scotland after MSPs voted to scrap it in 2014 following concerns it had led to a shortage of social housing.

Bannockburn SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson, a long term critic of Right to Buy, told Stirling Council’s environment and housing committee last Thursday he was glad Stirling was finally seeing the back of the policy but that it had been too long in coming.

Housing officials told members receipts from house sales were projected to be £30,800 given that the final RTB property sale had now been completed, bringing the project to a close.

They explained the reason the final sale had taken so long given the scheme was abolished from 2016 was due to complications involving title deeds relating to neighbouring properties.

Councillor Macpherson said:“In 1979 this council had 13,600 houses and now we have 5,600. People have paid £30,800 for a house worth several times that.

“There is a correlation between homelessness and the Right to Buy and it has taken 40 years to get rid of the scheme. May it rest in peace.”

Tory group leader Councillor Neil Benny, said : “Right to Buy has been an extremely popular policy, allowing people to realise their dream of owning their own home. The money was used to build more council houses. The SNP stopped it to satisfy their own shortsighted ideology, in doing so they have trampled on many tenants aspirations to buy their own home.”