Right to Buy sales collapse

Rochdale Council sold just one home under the Right to Buy scheme in the last three months of 2008. In the same quarter the year before it sold more than 70.

Rochdale Council’s Head of Strategic Housing Services, Paul Beardmore, is quoted by Inside Housing in its study of ten councils – one of which is Rochdale Borough – whose sales under Right to Buy plummeted last year.

Paul Beardmore, director of housing at Rochdale Council, said it would normally reinvest right to buy receipts in its decent homes programme.

The fall in receipts would have a big impact, he said.

"We have an annual programme to maintain decent homes and the annual repairs budget is woefully inadequate to do that," he added.