Scotland's Right to Buy scheme has came to an end over 30 years after the initiative was first introduced.

Since 1979-80, nearly 500,000 council and housing associations homes have been sold under the scheme.

The programme was designed to allow tenants in social housing to purchase their homes at discounted rates.

However MP's voted in 2014 to end the policy as it meant purchased homes were no longer available for later generations who wanted to rent in the social housing sector.

Housing Minister Kevin Stewart said ending the scheme marks a "major milestone" in efforts to build a "sustainable housing policy for the future".

"It is absolutely vital that people can access social housing when they need it most," he said.


"Since Right to Buy was introduced in 1980, nearly half a million council and housing association homes have been sold to their tenants.

"By ending the Right to Buy we are protecting up to 15,500 social homes from sale over the next ten years and safeguarding this stock for future generations."

Shelter Scotland Director, Graeme Brown, said the policy has "no place" in today's housing system.

"More than half a million social homes were sold off under right-to-buy in Scotland. For every three homes sold only one was built in replacement – so no wonder we have a housing crisis in Scotland," he said.

"Now that right-to-buy is consigned to history - and with a waiting list of 150,000 for a council house – what Scotland desperately needs now is a step change in the delivery of affordable housing. We need to build at least 12,000 new affordable homes a year to meaningfully tackle Scotland's housing crisis. We also need a new national homelessness strategy to get to grips with the root causes of homelessness.

"Only with these progressive changes will we start to address the profound damage caused to our housing system by policies like right-to-buy and the decades of underinvestment in affordable housing."

(LM/MH)