Labor mayors from the Liverpool and Manchester regions have both said they want to see more social housing built in their areas.

In May, Greater Manchester leader Andy Burnham called on the then Conservative government to suspend RTB on new builds after losing 500 social homes to the scheme in 2022.

He argued that if the planned homes could be purchased by their tenants, it would be “like trying to fill a bathtub without an electrical outlet”.

In Merseyside, virtually all former social housing stock has been transferred to housing associations over the past two decades.

But Metropolitan Mayor Steve Rotheram says Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) have inherited some of the problems associated with the RTB.

It claims one Merseyside RSL lost around a third of its homes to sales to tenants in the decade since the housing stock was transferred.

People renting from RSL can buy their accommodation under the “preserved” RTB if they lived in their accommodation when the municipality owned it.

And once a person has lived in an RSL property for three years, they can apply for the right to purchase.

Rotheram says lower borrowing rates for RSLs and a moratorium on sales would help boost growth in social housing.

“You’re not going to build a lot of houses for someone to come in three or four years from now and buy them below market value,” he says.

“How we deal with this is part of our growth plan presented to the government, and we are now trying to see if we can work with (Rayner) to come up with proposals.”

Mark Smith, Blackpool Council’s cabinet member for economy and built environment, is clear that although money generated from RTB sales is used to support various housing investments, revenue RTB that its council receives are “not sufficient to replace lost social rental housing”. .

And he says that even with changes such as the Government giving councils more flexibility to allow RTB receipts to be used alongside money from other streams such as funds donated by developers who obtain a permit to build for private projects, there are still administrative formalities on the way. using different types of financing together to build social housing.

“We do our best within the parameters of the policy as it currently exists, but there is always room for improvement,” he says.