Over this period around 23,000 homes have been sold under the scheme by their respective councils.
The largest number of sales took place in Barking and Dagenham, which saw 1,883 Right to Buy deals. This was followed by Greenwich at 1,867, Newham at 1,716 and Southwark at 1,702.
The analysis found that across the capital as a whole, the number of Right to Buy sales account for around 5.6 per cent of all homes owned by local authorities in London. However, different councils have seen far higher proportions of homes sold through the scheme.
For example, while only 62 homes have been sold through Right to Buy in the City of London, this represents 14.4 per cent of council homes in the borough. Newham again ranks highly here, with 10.2 per cent of homes sold, as does Barking and Dagenham at 9.8 per cent.
However, when looking at individual boroughs that have raised the most through Right to Buy sales, Southwark takes top spot, having generated £254.5m since 2012, followed by Greenwich (£223.5m), Barking and Dagenham (£222.3m) and Newham (£201.7m).
Marc von Grundherr, director of Benham and Reeves, said that the scheme has been “incredibly successful” when it comes to giving council tenants the ability to climb the housing ladder.
He added: “Of course, in doing so these local authorities have essentially shot themselves in the foot, as it severely reduces the social housing stock available to them to satisfy the huge demand from those who are still in desperate need of it. The irony is, that it then costs these councils more, as they need to rely on renting from the private sector at a higher price to house those in need.”
Von Grundherr said this begged the question of why local authorities in the capital have not invested appropriately in the provision of new homes for council tenants.
