More than 20,000 council homes could be lost across England in a year to pay for the extension of the Government’s right-to-buy policy to housing association tenants, according to Shelter. The charity calculated that the average local authorities would have to raise £26 million from selling council homes to raise the estimated £4.5 billion annual cost of additional right-to-buy discounts. But the figures were dismissed as “misleading” by the Department for Communities and Local Government, which insisted that every home sold will be replaced with at least one new “affordable” home – and two in London. Under the terms of the Housing Bill, 1.3 million housing association tenants in England will be given the right to buy their homes at a discount – currently worth up to £77,900 outside London and £103,900 in the capital – funded by a new requirement for councils to sell of their most expensive properties when they fall vacant. Shelter’s analysis suggested that Birmingham would be hardest-hit by the sell-off, needing to raise £145 million a year from council house sales, followed by Leeds (£129 million) and the south London borough of Southwark (£122 million).

In total, the charity estimates that the policy could force the sale of 23,500 council homes a year – enough to house the population of Oxford over a four-year period.

And it raised concern over the failure of the Housing Bill to guarantee a like-for-like replacement for the homes. Genuinely affordable properties could be replaced by “starter homes” costing up to £450,000 in London, said Shelter.

The charity’s chief executive Campbell Robb said: “With millions of families struggling to find a home they can afford, forcing councils to sell-off huge swathes of the few genuinely affordable homes they have left is reckless. Whilst the small number of lucky winners from this policy will understandably be grateful for the chance to buy their Housing Association property, ultimately far more people will lose out and be left with no choice but expensive, unstable private renting.”

Tackling financial exclusion effectively requires a broad range of preventative measures, including encouraging residents to join credit unions. Liverpool Housing Trust, for example, has just invested £50,000 in two credit unions and wants its own staff to join them, enabling the unions to offer as many loans as possible. In south Wales, many housing associations have adopted Moneyline, which offers affordable loans to people on low incomes, as well as basic bank and savings accounts.

Housing associations can also minimise tenants’ outgoings by helping them shop online to find the cheapest energy supplier or, in the case of Golden Gates Housing Trust, introducing solar panels to 1,500 properties to reduce energy costs.

The work can be challenging, however. In rural areas and the south Wales valleys, many bank and post office branches have closed, making it physically difficult for residents to gain access to a bank account, says Langley. Libraries where residents might use computers to access online accounts have also closed down. Some Welsh housing associations have responded by lending residents tablet computers to access the internet. Digital inclusion and financial inclusion are so closely linked.

Lack of broadband and dispersed groups of individuals makes this a more acute issue in rural communities than many people might suppose!