Right to Buy in England has become a 'strategic failure' that has exacerbated inequalities in society, a damning review has found.

The upcoming UK Housing Review 2022 said the policy had led to an erosion in the number of social rented homes - two in five of which are now in the unregulated rented sector.

It argued this had undermined the Government's ambition to boost home ownership and has had a ‘levelling down' impact in smaller settlements and rural areas where council housing is critical for lower-paid households.

Emeritus professor of urban and regional studies at the University of Birmingham, Alan Murie, who carried out the analysis, said: 'If there had been a sufficient attempt to sustain investment in social housing and to reinvest capital receipts in social rented homes, the impacts of Right to Buy could have been offset.

'The problem has not been Right to Buy as such, but because Right to Buy has continued alongside other policy failures.'

The review also found the policy had added pressure to local authority waiting lists and raised temporary accommodation costs.

Director of policy and external affairs at the Chartered Institute of Housing, James Prestwich, called for an 'urgent rethink' of the 'ill-designed policy'.

However, a spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: 'Right to Buy gives people the opportunity to own their home and has helped almost 2 million council tenants into home ownership.

'Since 2010 the Government has delivered more than 574,100 new affordable homes, including 156,600 for social rent.'