A council announced it will be selling off its social housing stock as it is far too expensive to repair, however it categorically states that none of the properties will be sold to private landlords.

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The West Midlands local media covered the story which says Dudley council has released details of its housing policy that any social houses that are empty because of necessary repairs that will cost more than £10,000 will be sold off in a job lot by Savills.

Savills carried out on behalf of the council a survey of all of its properties to find if they met the Decent Home Standard for social housing, and the findings made the council to make its decision in selling off homes.

The two local newspapers the Express & Echo spoke to the council cabinet member Councillor Ian Bevan regarding the sales, and quoted him saying: “Our ten-year housing asset management strategy, which was approved in 2019, sets out our vision for our housing stock, including the maintenance, disposal or requisition of stock.

“We have recently disposed of 132 homes and have a further 86 homes, two sheltered housing schemes and 15 void garage plots on the market.

“The homes are sold in groups… to commercial investors to avoid them being brought and sold by private landlords who could choose to re-let them in a poor condition.

“To balance the disposal programme, we are looking to buy new homes with ring fenced Right to Buy receipts. Since December 2023, the council has bought 50 homes.”

However a council committee asked one its officers why some of the properties have been immediately resold by developers without any of the homes being renovated.

The officer told the committee that it was just a small number of properties that were sold with the intention to raise funds to carry out renovations for the rest of the housing stock and those sales were scrutinised by the council's legal team.