Did Right to buy work for everyone?

Last October I went on a course in Participatory Appraisal.  Participatory Appraisal is a terrible name for a fantastic participatory research method based on a set of visual research tools that enable local people to identify, analyse and provide solutions to problems in their communities.  I was lucky enough to be working alongside a diverse group of Bangali, Somali, Uretran, Turkish and Spanish mums and dads from Tower Hamlets in East London. As part of the course we were sent off to collect people’s views on healthy living in the area. My group decided to go to the local health centre and we got talking with some older women who live in the area - Meg, Jean and June. Jean started to talk about the impact of the Thatcher Government's Right to buy scheme on her life. She bought her council house in 1980 when the scheme was first introduced. She felt that she had been duped into buying her council house and is now left with unsuitable accommodation on the second floor of a tower block with no lift. She can’t afford to pay for adaptations to her flat and she can’t deal with the stress and expense of moving. She, like many of her friends, just suffers on in unsuitable accommodation.

[Image of Margaret Thatcher and a Right to buy family in 1980 via The Guardian]

Although I had thought about the consequences of Right to buy for social tenants, in particular its impact on the quality and quantity of stock left in the sector, I hadn’t really considered the negative impacts of the scheme on homeowners who had bought their council homes through the scheme. In fact, like many others, I had assumed the scheme had been wholly positive for those households who were able to take advantage of it. This example highlights some of the downsides of Right to buy on those households who are now in their old age. If Jean had stayed in the social sector she would probably be able to move into more suitable accommodation or alternatively the council would have been obliged to make changes to her existing home.