Tenants should be stopped from buying council homes, according to council chiefs.

Brighton and Hove City Council’s minority Green administration believes selling more local authority properties will only deepen the housing crisis in the city.

The views, which the council says represents its 13,000 tenants and leaseholders, have been submitted to the Government as part of a national consultation on the right to buy scheme.

Council leader Bill Randall said: “Our administration is fundamentally opposed to the Right to Buy, which has seen nearly 6,000 homes in the city sold during the past 30 years.

“Furthermore we are extremely sceptical about government promises to reinvest the money raised from Right to Buy sales in new council homes.

"A similar promise was made in the 1980s but never kept.

“The council will continue, however, to support the development of new-build home ownership options, including shared ownership, to meet tenant and resident aspirations to become home-owners.”

The Department of Communities and Local Government has been asking local councils for their views on its proposal to increase the maximum right to buy discount entitlement.

This gives people who have been living in their local authority money off the market value.

Currently in Brighton and Hove this is a maximum of £38,000 but the Government believes plans to increase this to £50,000 from April will “reinvigorate” the scheme.

Latest figures show more than 11,000 people are on the council’s housing waiting list.

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