The "Right to Buy" policy introduced in the late 1980s (early 1990s?), or rather the implementation of this policy, has a lot to answer for. I argue it is the single biggest reason for the terrible state of housing provision in England.
Here's why;
Let's build a house in the year 1995, maybe it cost £40K to acquire the land, build the house and allowing profit for the builder.
Public Ownership
The 1ocal council (or another non-profit organisation but government should be able to borrow cheaply) borrows the money to purchase the house and it remains in their ownership.
Interest on the loan is 5% so the public body has to pay £2K a year to service the debt. Maybe the rent is £2.5K a year to allow for maintenance, etc. Other than inflationary increases in the cost of maintenance this level of rent can remain unchanged indefinitely.
Private Ownership
If the same house is owned privately things start off much the same except the landlord would expect some margin, let's say they have to charge a rent of £3K a year.
After some time, let's say 5 years, the landlord wishes to cash in the increase in the property value. To keep things simple we will assume the value also grows at 5%. The property is now worth approximately £51K. The new owner has to borrow £51K, and now the rent must rise significantly.
Indeed, even without selling the original owner might look at the property market and raise the rent accordingly - unless there's sufficient supply of publicly owned properties going at a much lower rent.
In the Big Picture
There problem with "Right to Buy" is that it altered the balance between the number of private and public rental properties. Over time, private landlords have been free to charge higher and higher rents without the "brake" effect of public competition.
The general principle behind "Right to Buy" seems reasonable and indeed popular. The problem with the implementation is that the public owners were forced to sell at a discount, and the proceeds were not re-invested. All very well to give the right to purchase the home you have lived in for years but why was done at a discount? Other then to cynically buy votes!