A leading homelessness charity has called on the Scottish government to scrap the right-to-buy policy.

Shelter Scotland said long waiting lists for social housing meant the policy was unfair and outdated.

In a statement, the charity said getting rid of the policy would keep council houses in use and also called on the government to invest in the sector and make sure 10,000 new social homes were built a year.

It said that amount of houses would be the "minimum" needed to meet demand.

Its calls come in response to the Scottish Government’s consultation on right-to-buy, which has met with widespread condemnation of a system that originated in the 1970s.


The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations said scrapping the policy would "preserve much-needed social housing at a time when there is ever-growing demand for it", and the Chartered Institute of Housing questioned its "usefulness" in today's housing market.

Housing minister Keith Brown has, however, seemed to edge more towards restricting right-to-buy than abolishing it altogether.

Shelter Scotland acknowledged this was a possibility, saying: "Other than abolition, we would only support reforms where all tenants are moved to modernised terms – with much smaller discounts and longer qualification periods."

The charity's director, Graeme Brown, said: "Right-to-buy has greatly benefited many thousands of council tenants who have been able to buy their home at a discount. But the good fortune of a few has come at the cost of many more people having to go through the despair and frustration of sitting on council waiting lists for months and years."

(NE/GK)