FOI release

Right to Buy Numbers

Case reference FOI2025/00314

Received 26 February 2025

Published 7 May 2025

Request

I am writing to request the following information under the Freedom of Information Act of 2000:

  1. The number of council and housing association permanent residency properties built or bought by the council or associations (excluding temporary accommodation), compared with the number of social properties bought under ‘Right to Buy’, for every year since 1980. If data is not available that far back, provide information from 2005.

  2. The total number of council and housing association permanent residency properties, excluding temporary accommodation, for every year since 1980. If the data is not available that far back, provide information from 2005.

  3. Percentage of social housing occupants in permanent residency properties compared to private rentals and owner-occupied properties.

Response

The information you have requested is submitted annually by Guildford Borough Council as part of the Local Authority Housing Statistics (LAHS) return to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

This data is published online and includes:

  • The number of council homes owned (excluding temporary accommodation)

  • The number of council homes built

  • The number of homes acquired

  • The number of Right To Buy application received

  • The number of Right To Buy dwellings sold

You can access these statistics here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-housing-data

Specifically, please refer to the tables titled Local Authority Housing Statistics Regional and local authority data for each year and ensure that you refer to the 'Local Authority Data' and 'data dictionary' tabs, to determine what each column of the table refers to in relation to Guildford.

Additionally, historical data on the numbers of Local Authority owned dwellings dating back to 1979 can be found via the following websites:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-dwelling-stock-including-vacants

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.publishing.service.gov.uk%2Fmedia%2F674050be02bf39539bdee829%2FLive_Table_116.ods&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK

Regarding your query about the percentage of social housing occupants in permanent properties compared to private rentals and owner-occupied homes:

Guildford Borough Council holds this information in its Housing Strategy, which is publicly available on our website. The strategy includes housing tenure data drawn from the Census and provides a breakdown of social housing, private rented, and owner-occupied homes within the borough.

You can access the most recent Housing Strategy here:

https://democracy.guildford.gov.uk/documents/s39160/Item%2008%201%20-%20Housing%20Strategy%20Report%20-%20App%201%20-%20Draft%20Strategy.pdf

Documents

There are no documents for this release.

This is Guildford Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.

You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.