The government has quitely dropped controversial plans to force local councils to sell off their highest value social homes.
Ministers said they will repeal laws, passed in 2016, that would have forced councils to sell off the properties and give the proceeds to the Treasury.
The announcement was included in the government's long-awaited social housing green paper, published on Tuesday.
In it, housing secretary James Brokenshire confirmed: "We will not require local authorities to make a payment in respect of their vacant higher value council homes."
The policy had been forecast to lead to the loss of more than low-cost 100,000 homes and was heavily criticised by town hall leaders, who said it would decimate the stock of low-cost homes and prevent them building more.
Proposals to stop councils giving tenants lifetime tenancies have also been dropped.
It marks the latest housing policies introduced under David Cameron to be ditched by the current government. Plans to and remove in supported housing have already been scrapped. So too were proposal to force wealthier social housing tenants to pay higher rents.
Announcing the latest U-turn in its green paper, the the Ministry of Housing said: "The government remains committed to the principle that councils should use their housing assets effectively and should consider selling high value homes and using the funding to build more affordable housing.
"However, this should be a decision to be made locally, not mandated through legislation and we understand that the uncertainty around the future of this policy could prevent councils from building.
"Therefore to increase councils’ confidence to plan ambitious house building programmes, we are confirming in this green paper that the government will not bring the Higher Value Assets provisions of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 into effect. We will look to repeal the legislation when parliamentary time allows."
The policy was due to fund an extension the extension of the controversial Right to Buy scheme to housing association tenants. It is unclear how this will now be funded or if ministers will press ahead with the plans.
A pilot of the policy is due to begin later this year.
Local council leaders welcomed the decision not to force them to sell off social housing.
Judith Blake, the Local Government Association's housing spokesperson, said: “It is good that the government has listened to our concerns and dropped plans to force the sale of council homes.
"We have worked hard to demonstrate the need to scrap this policy which would have forced councils to sell off large numbers of the homes desperately needed by low-income families in our communities.”
John Healey, Labour's shadow housing secretary, said: “Under pressure from Labour and from councils run by all political parties, Ministers have been forced to backtrack on these misguided proposals.
“The Government must now go further and adopt Labour’s plan to get councils building at scale again, including by fully lifting the cap on borrowing for new housing.”
Among other measures proposed by the government include league tables for landlords, which would be based on how well properties are maintained and how effectively complaints are dealt with.
Ministers are also consulting on tightening the regulation of social housing, including amending the Decent Homes Standard, which is used to judge the quality of using.
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