'Right-to-buy' sales triple

The number of houses bought under the “right-to-buy” scheme has tripled in the capital over the past year.

A total of 1,055 social tenants bought their home from a London council in 2012/13 compared with 311 the previous year. Greenwich had the most right-to-buy sales with 129 in the past year compared with 18 in 2011/2012.

The initiative was revamped in April last year with tenants offered discounts of up to £75,000 off the value of the home, or £100,000 in London. Over the year the number of such sales rose from 24 to 94 in Southwark; from 71 to 96 in Barking and Dagenham; and from eight to 79 in Haringey.

Tenants need to have lived in their council property for at least five years to be eligible, but there are plans to cut this to three years.

Shadow housing minister Jack Dromey said the Government was failing to live up to its promise to build a new council property to replace every one sold.