May pledges new right-to-buy plan to boost UK social housing

London

UK Prime Minister Theresa May pledged a new right-to-buy programme for social housing in an effort to boost home-building by local authorities and help alleviate a growing shortage of low-cost housing.

Councils and housing associations will be offered government funding to build homes along with permitting help from the Homes and Communities Agency, the Conservatives said in a statement on Saturday. The programme will require a proportion of the homes to be sold after a set period of 10 to 15 years. Existing tenants at that point will have the first right to buy the properties, which will otherwise be sold to private or institutional investors.