A CONTROVERSIAL policy which allows council tenants to buy their homes should be scrapped, councillors have agreed.

Brighton and Hove City Council will ask government permission to end the “right to buy” scheme because it puts public homes into the hands of private landlords.

Councillors voted through a Green motion to apply for the exemption, which would be the first of its kind granted to a local authority in the country, at a council meeting on Thursday.

Right to buy was a flagship policy of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government and allows council tenants to buy their homes at a discount.

City council chief executive Penny Thompson will ask Chancellor George Osborne and local government minister Eric Pickles for an end to the policy in the city and for extra funding to help council tenants move into new private housing.

Housing committee chairman Bill Randall, who tabled the motion, said 6,000 council homes in the city had been sold under the scheme, with more than 1,000 of those now being used for private rental.

He said the scheme had transformed areas such as Bevendean with nearby Brighton Aldridge Community Academy struggling to attract enough pupils. He added: “We want to give housing hope to people in the city who have none at the moment.

“If we lose the house, we lose the land, and land is so valuable in this city and restricts any possibility to redevelop in the future.”

Councils keep around 30% of the money raised from sales which can be used to reinvest back into housing.

Increases in the level of discount available to council home introduced in 2012 saw a four-fold increase in right-to-buy applications in the city.

Conservative councillor Graham Cox said the city’s housing problem were because not enough houses were built and nimbyism.

He said: “Abolishing right-to-buy, taking away that ladder up for working people living in council houses, will be a very selfish act by this council.”