Tourist areas which already had large numbers of such properties - including Scarborough, the Isle of Wight, North Devon, the Cotswolds and Norfolk - have seen sharp increases.
The BBC has obtained data from 152 individual councils across England on short-term lets - available for at least 140 days of the year and registered for business rates rather than council tax. Among the councils who responded to the BBC, there was a 40% increase in such accommodation - from 19,543 in 2018 to 27,424 last year.
This tallies with government figures for the same period - covering the whole country but not broken down to a council-by-council level - which also show a 40% rise. The government admits it only has a limited picture of how many properties across England are second homes and holiday-lets, particularly the growth of online marketplaces such as Airbnb and Vrbo.
The Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is looking at whether holiday-lets should be registered, or even licenced. It has now launched a call for evidence, promised in its Tourism Recovery Strategy in June 2021, on the impact of short term lets on England.
Tourism Minister Nigel Huddleston said the government was “very aware” of the issues.
“There are many benefits to having more accommodation provision in the UK. It’s good for our tourism industry that there’s a variety of a, ccommodation offers but it can come with a downside as well so we want to get the right balance,” he said. “One of the options is to licence accommodation at one extreme, or we could end up doing nothing.”
The second home/holiday let situation is, obviously, spiralling out of control. Absentee landlords with money are investing and profiteering. Local citizens cannot afford to buy or rent somewhere to live.
It has been going on here in Norfolk since before I got married in 1977! there was no way we could have afforded to buy a house and no chance of getting social housing. People from London and wealthy areas were buying up all the properties. We moved away for several years and saved hard. We would have loved to stay here but it wasn’t possible. I can’t think of a single friend who ever bought a house here either.
We moved back in 1985 and were able to buy a cheaper property but not on the coast as they were way out of our price range.
Stayed there about 6 years and then sold up and bought another in the next village. Been here ever since. 14 years ago we also bought a small house in the village which is really our pension as my OH has always been self employed, worked 6 days a week and takes 2 weeks holiday a year!
We rented it out to local people for 12 years and they were then allocated a council bungalow due to ill health. This was during the pandemic and we were told that we would not be able to get rid of bad tenants during that time so we then decided to do holiday lets from April 21. It has been almost continuously booked out since then.
Yes it is a second home but we worked hard for it and it has provided local people with a nice home when they would otherwise not have got one.
well isn’t it considered as internal revenue which is supposedly ploughed back into the local trade/counties/country? and those accruing it would be paying additional taxes surely?
If the landlords are absentee then only council tax (i.e. property tax) goes to the local authority. The rest of the rental income can go to anywhere in the world, avoiding tax in the process.
@Flowerpower are there any new builds for local people being built ?, Ive read in certain areas this is so . that would be one way round it , But it goes on everywhere , a good area gets moved in by people moving up the ladder and locals are pushed out price wise . , not talking about Holiday lets now but Rural villages .
In one way you must have doubled your income on the property,as a holiday let can fetch upto ÂŁ1,000 a week .
Which would normally be a months rent if let out …
Looking at holiday lets for myself I was shocked at the prices now ,the decent ones are my monthly pension , for just one week .
housing developments around here have to include so many social houses. however, they build them in daft places. There’s a village about 5 miles from us where they built some but there are no shops, nothing at all in the village and most importantly no bus route at all! What good is that to people who can’t afford a car? i have spoken to several people who have been offered a house there but have declined as they can’t get to work, GP, shops etc.
We get nothing like ÂŁ1,000 a week because our property is only suitable for 2 people but a property on the coast with a few bedrooms can easily get that amount.
