13th
Jan 2022
The government’s Housing Minister has just announced its intentions to toughen up its stance on holiday lets by holding a formal consultation about whether to introduce a compulsory register for England.
The consultation will also take into consideration how the ‘explosion’ in numbers of Airbnb and short let homes is impacting local communities.
The announcement was made when the former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron told the House of Commons that in his Lake District constituency holiday lets should now be subject to separate planning permission, and owners must start to pay multiples of council tax already paid by present owner occupiers and long term tenants.
Farron also claimed that many of the local community simply cannot to afford to live in the area which leads to labour shortages and severely impacts schools and local shops.
He also stated to members that during Covid there has been a rush to snap up second ‘homes’ whilst Airbnb and other short term holiday letting portals are accommodating the surge in Staycation holidays, resulting in many villages and towns virtually empty for large portions of the year as house prices are out of reach for local people.
He told the Commons that "A bad situation has become entirely disastrous" claiming in his constituency the average price of a standard home is now 11 times as much as the area’s average wage.
MPs from all parties gave their full backing to Farron.
The Conservative MP who represents the Isle of Wight, Bob Seely , told MPs that in the village of the Seaview 82 per cent of homes are now second homes.
The Labour MP for York, Rachael Maskell, told members the typical house price in the city was 8.3 times the average wage and the Tory MP for North Devon, Selaine Saxby, said Barnstaple’s housing crisis is now in such a state that only two ‘homes’ were listed for renting whilst there were 123 available for holiday lets on Airbnb.
Housing minister Chris Pincher promised the government will undertake a consultation on a possible Tourist Accommodation Registration Scheme this year.
Pincher said: ”We recognise a large number of second homes and holiday lets can have adverse effects.”
However he added that many local communities’ economies would be badly affected by a reduction in tourism throughout England and home owners have the right to use their properties as they like.
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