THE government recently announced that qualifying tenants in Housing Association properties would be able to purchase their homes from the association at a discount and that this would further booster the percentage of owner occupiers.

The idea is that the funds raised from the sale of these properties would then be used to build new Housing Association properties.

However a group of MPs within the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have criticised the policy based on both the realistic ability to provide funding and to build suitable replacement units to match those lost.

They are not alone as the Welsh and Scottish governments have rejected the plan as have the Local Government Association and the Institute of Fiscal Studies.

I must admit that when I heard the news, I was also surprised and bewildered at the reasoning’s for the introduction of this policy.

Perhaps a vote winning exercise by the Conservative Government now that they hold a majority and no longer run a tied government.

With this comes the pledge to extend the Right to Buy with councils funding this by selling off their most valuable council houses when they become vacant.

In reality within the Stroud area what this means is that these are predominantly located within the villages, though as we have already seen most village former council houses are already in the private sector.

One consequence of this is that one becomes unable to provide social housing to any of the villages and village primary schools can become more selective at the expense of the town centre schools.

But surely, the initial purpose of providing council housing within the villages was to meet a housing need of our parents and grandparents who now have children and grandchildren deprived of any hope of remaining within the village that they were brought up in.

The same applies to Housing Associations who tend to either have purpose build blocks of flats or small developments within the towns and a pocket of social housing within the villages that was provided as a condition of planning consent to the developers.

What this means is that the existing stock can be sold at a huge discount of up to 70 per cent capped at £77,900 in the Stroud district with discounts 35 per cent available after three years of occupancy.

Those currently living within Housing Association property and in a position to afford a mortgage this is good news, though without a clear strategy of where land exists to build, when these housing units are to be replaced and how will they be funded, it is like Meg Hillier chair of the PAC said an idea sketched out on the back of an envelope that lacks the envelope!