Policy Press Housing Policy Transformed: The Right to Buy and the Desire to Own

'The Right to Buy' is the most controversial housing policy of the last 30 years, but it is also the most successful. Mrs. Thatcher's government sought to open up owner occupation to working class households and to break the hold that local authorities had on rented housing. Both these aims were clearly met. Most studies of the Right to Buy have focused on the costs of the policy and have sought to show its negative impact. This book, however, seeks to understand the Right to Buy on its own terms. It explains how the policy links with a coherent ideology based on self-interest and the care of things close to us. It shows that the policy succeeded because it worked with the grain of people's interests and aspirations. Instead of a policy that sought to do things for people, the Right to Buy allowed them to do things for themselves. This book will be of interest to students, academics and researchers in housing and public policy, but will also be of wider interest for those wishing to know why some policies work and others do not.