Right to buy in reverse: how Brighton is tackling its social housing crisis | Richard Partington

The council is rolling back Thatcher’s flagship policy by buying stock from private landlords. Other local authorities should take note On a windswept housing estate by the English Channel, Jacob Taylor surveys the latest addition to his property empire: a mixture of one-, two- and three-bedroom flats, built on the playing fields of an old private school. They might not look like much but these neat rows of redbrick homes are an important acquisition – not for an offshore investor or a real-estate mogul, but for the Labour-run Brighton and Hove city council, where Taylor, its deputy leader, is taking a trailblazing approach.