The leader of Southampton City Council has admitted she holds a “long-standing opposition” to Right to Buy.

Labour councillor Lorna Fielker said her position was at odds with the government, stressing that council housing stock across the city had been “decimated” by the scheme.

Right to Buy allows most local authority tenants to buy their council home at a discount price if certain criteria are met.

Since being introduced in 1980, 8,613 council houses in Southampton have been sold under Right to Buy, according to Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government data.

As of September last year, the city’s social housing register waiting list stood at 8,186 applicants, while the council’s housing stock stands at around 18,000 dwellings.

Speaking at the cabinet meeting on Tuesday, January 28, Cllr Fielker said the current flexibility for local authority’s to spend 100 per cent of Right to Buy retained receipts on purchasing additional social housing properties was positive.

The council is set to spend more than £13million in such a way, with the target of acquiring 53 homes to provide temporary accommodation for families.

“On a personal level, I have a long-standing opposition to Right to Buy because I believe there are other ways to help people into low-cost home ownership without losing social-rented homes, particularly family homes,” Cllr Fielker said.

“We have seen how much loss of that we have had in our own stock and the challenges we have in housing families who are on the waiting list.

“It is good news to actually be able to add some of those back into Southampton City Council’s stock.”

The Labour government introduced the temporary flexibilities on how councils could spend Right to Buy receipts last summer.

The measures are currently due to expire at the end of the next financial year.

Cllr Fielker said she would be lobbying for the changes to be made permanent.

She said: “It is criminal that we have had to give back money to the government and not be able to reinvest that in replacing homes.

“We have seen the stock decimated across this city and it is those families that need three and four-bedroom homes who are suffering the most and it is those properties that have gone.

“I live in one. I live in ex-council stock and I would say many of my neighbours we are probably more private owned in my bit of the street than we are council housing.

“I think Right to Buy was always bad policy despite it having been supported by Labour governments as well as Conservative governments and I am not going to change my view on that.”

The government recently carried out a consultation on reforms to Right to Buy.

Proposals include changing the formula for discounts and tenants having to have lived in their homes for 10 years rather than the current three-year requirement to qualify for the scheme.

Consideration is also being made on if newly built social housing should be exempt for a set period.

The consultation closed in mid-January and the government is yet to publish its response.