Photo by BethPH

Having previously taken the view that selling social housing and building substitute homes further away is effectively social cleansing, I’ve changed my mind a bit with the news of the recent sale of two former council homes in Southwark.

As a number of people have written over the last few years, the capital is in danger of becoming a city of two ghettoes – inner London for the wealthy and outer London for the poor. The sale of 21 and 23 Park Street near London Bridge is a fantastic example of where it’s more sensible to take the money and run, and I wrote about it for CityMetric.

In late July, two houses in Southwark went on the market for more than £3m each. There’s nothing particularly unusual in this – houses sell for a lot more than that in central London. But what made this estate agent listing slightly out of the ordinary is that the two properties are former council houses. Britain’s most expensive council houses, in fact. Read more.

Since I wrote this, another former council property bought under Right to Buy (RTB)  in Covent Garden has been sold for £1.2m.