A woman from Kent who has been on the social housing waiting list for over three years told i she supports the scrapping of the “ridiculous” Right to Buy scheme.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has suggested the Government may move to scrapping the scheme in England.

Right to Buy was introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1980, and allows social housing tenants to buy the properties they are living in, often at a significant discount.

The policy was praised initially for increasing rates of home ownership among working class people, but has more recently been blamed for exacerbating homelessness.

Right to Buy was ended in Scotland in 2016, and in 2019 the Welsh government stopped the policy.

More than 2 million homes have been sold under the scheme to date, but Rayner suggested it could be scrapped “so that we aren’t losing that stock”.

What did Rayner say about Right to Buy?

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner suggested this week she wants to stop new council homes in England from being sold under the Right to Buy scheme.

Rayner told the BBC the Government would put restrictions on new social homes in England “so that we aren’t losing that stock”.

Rayner said the country was facing a “homelessness crisis”, as she announced £10m to help rough sleepers get through the winter.

Labour has pledged to build the largest number of social and council homes since the Second World War. Rayner told the BBC that she doesn’t want those newly built properties “leaving the system”.

Louisa Nerssessian, 41, said: “I support scrapping Right to Buy, it’s ridiculous it was ever brought in in the first place. We don’t have the housing stock to be letting [council houses] go.”

As a wheelchair user, Ms Nerssessian told i she was living in a bungalow owned by the council with her partner in Essex until they split up in October 2021. She then moved back to her home county of Kent.

She said she has spent the last three years on a waiting list for social housing which meets her accessibility needs in her hometown of Herne Bay, Kent. She has been living in a private let in the meantime, which she claims has no central heating.

“It is difficult waiting around every week for Wednesday for the bidding process to start,” Ms Nerssessian said. “The first year I lived here I thought, I can’t do another winter here.

“I had someone from environmental health come out last year, and they said to have the property adequately heated, the heating would have to be on 24 hours a day.”

She told i she only has one electric heater, which cost £50 per week last winter. “In winter my kitchen can get below zero degrees. I have my dog at least, who can keep me a bit warmer too.” Ms Nerssessian said.

“Council houses should be for people who can’t afford to live anywhere else.”

Elsewhere in Kent, Jake Summers has been trying to get a council house for his family in the town of Sheerness-on-Sea.

Mr Summers and his partner currently live in a two-bedroom flat with their four sons. The couple shares the smaller room, while the eldest child, aged 10, sleeps on the sofa in the living room and the other three boys share the second bedroom.

“My older two boys are developing mental health problems due to lack of personal space or anywhere to go and take some quiet time,” Mr Summers told i.

“It also means we can’t own much of anything as there is nowhere to put things. So it’s quite simply a stressful and intrusive life in a flat which is also poorly maintained by the housing association.”

Despite this, Mr Summers, is not convinced ending the Right to Buy scheme would make a difference in freeing up more housing for people on waiting lists. “You could still be a council tenant for 20 plus years in the same house,” he said.

Instead, Mr Summers believes Labour should hand control of stock back to local authorities and away from housing associations which he believes offer “poor communication” with the council over available spaces, leading to properties lying empty.

Less power for housing associations is also something Ms Nerssessian would like to see in Kent. “Property belonging to the housing associations tends to be much smaller and often without a garden because they want to make as much money as possible,” she said.