Islington Council says its policy to use social housing to tackle temporary accommodation is going smoothly, with four ex-Right to Buy homes being bought back on average every week.
By Joe Steen
Islington Council says its policy to use social housing to tackle temporary accommodation is going smoothly, with four ex-Right to Buy homes being bought back on average every week.
More than 150 homes have been brought under local authority control so far this year.
A report put to the Homes and Communities scrutiny committee last week gave a positive update on the council’s performance, stating that 60 per cent of 410 planned purchases would be completed “soon”.
On top of this, the housing operations service plans to buy a further 164 ex-Right to Buy properties before the end of the 2025/26 financial year.
In July, the committee was told these homes would be protected from being sold on again, as they would be purchased solely to provide temporary accommodation.
Last month, the council revealed to the Local Democracy Reporting Service that there were 1,575 households in temporary accommodation in the borough.
Cllr Ilkay Cinko-Oner said it was “brilliant news that we’re buying these properties back” but raised the recent issue of 28 vacant flats in Wellington Mews being sold off by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
The MoJ’s decision came after years of campaigning from local activists, who had urged the government to convert the empty flats next to Pentonville Prison into social housing to help ease overcrowding in the area.
In 2022, Cllr Diarmaid Ward said it was a “scandal” that three- and four-bedroom flats were sitting vacant in the borough.
Months later, he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that there was a “dire shortage in Islington for those large family-sized homes”, and called on the government to make a full planning application.
Councillors and officers revealed at last Thursday’s meeting that the MoJ’s decision to sell the empty properties, announced last week, was now the responsibility of the corporate resouces and economy scrutiny committee.
