Conservative's right to buy has been disastrous

A housing crisis built by Thatcher and revived by the coalition government and compounded by the current government.

Tory Minister Sajid Javid’s department for Housing, Communities and Local Government has returned £292m of funding over two years it said was “no longer required” in 2016-18.

Javid’s department also surrendered £379m for the government’s flagship starter homes schemes over the course of two years.

The total amount of the housing budget allocated but not used by the government now stands at £1.1bn.

Most of the money was supposed to have been spent on affordable housing and will instead be used to support the ‘help to buy’ programme which of course completely misses the poorest citizens in need of homes.

We now rely on private developers not local authorities to deliver affordable homes but since 2012, national planning rules have been changed, by the Tories, and enabled the widespread use and abuse of “viability assessments” – now to be reversed by the Tories and spun as a move forward!

Developers can use viability assessments to argue that building affordable homes could reduce their profits below competitive levels, which they define as around 20 per cent. This gives them a legal right to cut their affordable housing quota.

New research from Shelter and the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) shows that the problem is devastating for rural communities as house prices are often higher and wages lower than in urban settings.

Losing even a small number of affordable homes can be the difference between post offices and schools staying open or not, and villages thriving or dying as families and young people are priced out.

Time to vote out a government with no answers on housing and vote in a new government that has pledged to build council and housing association homes which would be "for rent and totally affordable".

Ms Janet Cobb

Edgton