by Lamiat Sabin

THE WELSH government pledged yesterday to slash the right to buy discount in Wales and is preparing to drive the policy back east of Offa’s Dyke.

Social housing tenants wishing to buy their homes will see their maximum discount drop from £16,000 to £8,000 this summer after a consultation showed that 76 per cent of respondents — including tenants, housing associations and local authorities — supported a cut.

And 63 per cent want to scrap the right to buy altogether, in order to safeguard existing council homes after privatisation caused a “significant reduction.”

Public housing is at risk of extinction after the Tories resurrected a flagship 1980s policy allowing council tenants to take out mortgages on their properties.

More than 130,000 council and housing association homes in Wales have been bought since 1980.

In 2003, the maximum discount in Wales was cut from £24,000 to £16,000 and sale numbers from 2008 fell into the low hundreds, according to the BBC.

As well as home shortages, survey respondents are overwhelming concerned that the private sector “cannot adequately step in to replace the diminished social housing stock.”

Less social housing being available would also lead to more public funds being paid directly into the pockets of private landlords who lease expensive and often sub-par properties to tenants that claim housing benefit, the survey found.

Communities Minister Lesley Griffiths said: “The consultation on our proposals has brought to the fore some interesting views on Wales’s housing needs and demonstrated people’s support for protecting our social housing stock.”

A new law to end right to buy will be considered after Welsh Assembly elections next May.

Scotland voted last summer to end the policy for all council and housing association tenants and it will come into effect on August 1 next year.

Meanwhile, in England right to buy is to be extended to 1.3 million housing association tenants, who are currently only offered the “right to acquire.”