GOVERNMENT red tape is severely restricting the council’s ability to build the affordable homes local people need, council leaders have said.

This week the leader and Labour councillors on Stroud District Council have written to Housing Ministers to voice their frustration over flaws in the Right To Buy scheme.

They argue bureaucracy in the policy - which lets council tenants buy their homes at a substantial discount to help them onto the property ladder – is making it impossible for council to spend the money from the sales on replacing the homes.

“It’s deeply frustrating,” said leader of council Steve Lydon (Labour/The Stanleys).

“People need affordable homes and in Stroud District the Labour-led coalition has been working hard, with 100 council homes built and over 100 more on the way.

“However, government red tape means that money we had hoped to spend on replacing council homes as they are sold is so bound up in red tape that it’s virtually unusable.

“We’re even having to return some money to the government to avoid paying them huge interest charges”

Councillor Mattie Ross (Labour/Stonehouse), chair of the Housing Committee, said the policy was robbing the council of its stock and starving the area of much needed social housing.

“At the moment we’re losing around 25 houses a year through the Right To Buy scheme,” she said.

“Of course, no one is blaming tenants from wanting to own their own house – that’s natural. It’s the system that’s wrong.

“The problem is we’re not allowed to keep the money from selling those homes.

"It gets caught up in red tape and our hands get tied. The money goes to the treasury instead.

“This means that we can’t afford to replace the homes we’re losing one for one – which has a huge knock on effect in the district.

“We desperately want to build more houses. At the moment we have 2,500 live cases of people wanting a council house – and this policy’s flaws are just making things worse.”

It comes after a report showed just one in eight council homes sold off under the Tories' Right to Buy is being replaced - despite promises to rebuild them 'one-for-one'.

Between April and June 2016, councils sold an estimated 3,362 homes - an increase of 21 per cent on the same quarter the previous year.

But during the same period, councils only started or acquired land for 422 replacements.

Labour’s shadow housing minister said the party would suspend the Right To Buy policy in England if elected.

The previous Labour government substantially cut the discounts available under the Right To Buy scheme but never fully abolished it.

Right to Buy was revitalised under the Tories in 2012, with big discounts made available to council tenants who wanted to buy their homes, causing a further wave of sell-offs.

Far from boosting home ownership though, figures produced by the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Committee in February this year found that 40 per cent of flats sold off under the scheme were now in the hands of private landlords.

Housing minister Gavin Barwell last week defended the scheme.

“From London to Leeds, Right To Buy plays an important part in building a country that works for everyone, helping thousands of people become homeowners for the first time,” he said.

“And we’re determined to replace the additional homes sold on a one-for-one basis, nationally – providing new affordable homes for rent for those who need them.”

Neil Carmichael MP said: “Of course we need more housing in the area but Labour’s policy of abolishing Right to Buy for millions of council tenants won’t help people get on the housing ladder.

“The Conservative Party supports home ownership and is working hard to build a country that works for everyone.

"That’s why we are committed to making sure every home sold under Right to Buy is replaced by a new home with the receipts from sales put back into replacing them.”

SDC is halfway through a large scale £19.5m building program which will see 200 new homes build across the district by early 2018.

In the last year the authority has completed four new housing schemes in Minchinhampton, Littlecombe, Cam and Berkley which have provided 67 new homes.

A further 22 new homes were finished at the Top of Town in Stroud, at Target Close and Mason Road.

SDC has also purchased 18 properties and created nine more through conversions.

Work on 114 further properties is underway and due for completion in the next 12 months.