ABSTRACT
Council house sales is not a new policy but it is only in the 1980s that it has become sufficiently important to merit the term ‘social revolution’. The sale of over one million dwellings in six years has involved a rapid change in ownership and control of housing and significant redistribution of assets from the state to individuals. By 1987 the policy appears to have passed its peak. Sales are in decline and the government is looking towards other ways of demunicipalis-ing housing. The possibility that the Right to Buy will be withdrawn from the statute book has become increasingly remote. Ironically in 1987 it is most under threat from Conservative policies to break up council housing through disposals to other landlords. Such intentions were clear from the terms of the Housing and Planning Act 1986 and more obviously from the Conservative Manifesto in the 1987 General Election. This stated:
We will give groups of tenants the right to form tenant cooperatives, owning and running their management and budget for themselves. They will also have the right to ask other institutions to take over their housing. Tenants who wish to remain with the local authority will be able to do so.
We will give each council house tenant individually the right to transfer the ownership of his or her house to a housing association or other independent, approved landlord. (Conservative Party, 1987)
The Manifesto and subsequent White Paper referred to powers to create Housing Action Trusts to take over areas of poor housing, renovate them and pass them to different tenures and ownerships, including housing associations, tenant co-operatives, owner occupiers or approved private landlords.