Council leaders are calling for the Right to Buy scheme to be abolished in a letter to the government.

Councillor Zoe Nicholson, leader of Lewes District Council, and Councillor Stephen Holt, leader of Eastbourne Borough Council, have written to Angela Rayner, secretary of state for housing, communities and local government, to voice their opposition.

It comes as a report, Securing the Future of Council Housing, was commissioned by Southwark Council on the challenges and risks council housing is facing and potential solutions.

Cllr Nicholson said: "Since Right to Buy was launched in the 1980s, the world has changed and, at a time when there is not enough social housing, this policy continues to further reduce the stock councils do have.

“There are other ways of supporting low-cost homeownership, which would not see a reduction to much-needed council housing, and these options should be explored further."

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Cllr Holt said: "I applaud Southwark Council for their excellent and most timely report and encourage the government to take forward the solutions, including the implementation of a more financially sustainable Housing Revenue Account model.

"These are interconnected issues that without reform will lead to the bleakest future for social housing."

In January of this year, it was revealed that almost a third of social homes Brighton have been lost since the introduction of Right to Buy.

Research by member of parliament for Brighton Pavilion Sian Berry found the only years since the policy’s introduction that had a sustained increase in housing stock were between 2019 and 2022, when there was a net gain of 140 council homes.

The policy, introduced by Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, gives tenants the legal right to buy their council home, often at a large discount.

While credited for creating a boom in home ownership, it also caused a huge drop in the amount of social housing across the country.

Lewes District and Eastbourne Borough Council have put forward recommendations which focus on the implementation of what they state is a more effective, responsive, and robust temporary housing model, bridging the gap between housing, health and social care and enabling collaborative and accelerated housing retrofit and decarbonisation programmes.