Feature: how holiday homes are ‘killing’ rural communities

NewStart reporter Chloe Coules investigates the impact that a rise in holiday lets and second homes is having on the availability of affordable housing for local people in the country’s favourite holiday destinations.

With the pandemic limiting international travel, staycations have seen a massive revival, further boosting the exponentially growing holiday rental market. But for traditional holiday hotspots, homes that were once rented to local families now sit empty for much of the year, leaving the future viability of these rural communities uncertain.

New data from the countryside charity CPRE reveals a 1000% increase in short-term lets nationally since 2015, with rural holiday hotspots the most affected.

The charity’s analysis of properties on Airbnb and similar sites shows that 148,000 homes are being put up as short term and holiday lets across the nation.

This steep rise has been accompanied by a dramatic decline in the completion of new social housing projects since 2013.

With private landlords choosing to convert their properties into holiday lets to meet demand for staycations and councils unable to build enough social housing to replace them, many local people are being priced out of their communities and forced to join growing housing waiting lists.

‘There simply has to be a government response to the fact that our rural housing supply is disappearing into an unregulated short-term rentals market that simply didn’t exist six years ago,’ says Crispin Truman, Chief Executive of CPRE.

Research from the District Council Network (DCN) found that 76% of councils have seen an increase in landlords selling up properties, especially in areas popular with tourists, causing a rise in housing waiting lists and making it harder to find permanent accommodation for those in need.

48% of these district councils said they are now experiencing significant pressure on housing services due to the rise of holiday lets.

With 176,000 families across the nation currently waiting for social housing, rural communities are desperate for regulation to curb the shift towards holiday rentals.

One area especially affected by the problem is South Lakeland, an area in Cumbria containing much of the Lake District and northwestern parts of the Yorkshire Dales.

Analysis from the CPRE found South Lakeland saw a 1,231% increase in short term listings between 2016-20, with the properties exclusively available for holiday rentals in the area theoretically able to house around half of families in need of social housing.

Cllr Jonathan Brook, Leader of South Lakeland District Council, tells NewStart: ‘Clearly the tourism sector is a very important part of our economy up here in the lakes – in fact the biggest part of our economy – but the problems caused by excessive holiday lets outweigh any of the benefits.’

When occupied, the holiday lets in the area can bring an increase in disposable income into local communities, and some owners also make use of local businesses for property maintenance, but Cllr Brook explains that too many holiday lets upsets the balance of the communities.

‘When holiday lets take away opportunities for the local workforce to have housing in some of these communities, it means you lose young people and young families, and that has knock on effects in terms of the viability of a lot of these communities, which is why we believe that excessive numbers [of these properties] need to be controlled.’

He adds: ‘The average house price is 11 times greater than the average household income, which means that houses are unaffordable for local people if they come up on the private market. This issue of squeezing out local people causes demographic shifts in communities, leaving an increasingly aging population left behind. The viability of the community is threatened as well as the stability.’

The increasingly aging population in these rural communities places more pressure on local care and health services, and with less residents there is reduced demand for other local services like transport during quiet months, so crucial facilities like schools, post offices, doctor’s surgeries and bus routes can no longer be justified, increasing rural isolation and making access to services more difficult for the people left behind when the tourists leave.

Despite efforts from the Council to encourage landlords to house local people, social housing waiting lists continue to rise.

‘It is affecting the ability of local families to access the private rented market because a lot of properties that might normally be expected to become available as private lets are actually being let out as holiday lets because the owners can get significantly more for a holiday let than they can from a normal private rented tenant.

‘Our social rented waiting lists are stubbornly high, despite the fact that as a council we have put into place several measures to increase the supply of social housing.’

He also notes: ‘We are seeing people being evicted from private rented properties so they can become holiday homes, and clearly that is a very distressing thing for those families, but also for those communities.’

As many tourist destinations also have tight restrictions on new builds, the opportunity for building new homes for the growing number of people on waiting lists is greatly diminished, leaving council’s making pleas to government for greater regulation of the short term let market.

South Lakeland District Council, like many others, has been calling for action for many years. They want to see second homes and holiday lets put into new, separate planning use categories, ensuring that the number of private rented properties being switched to holiday rentals can be capped in communities that need it.

They also urge the government to provide additional funding for housing enforcement, close tax loopholes for holiday homes, tighten restrictions on Section 21 evictions, and give councils the power to increase council tax on second homes, as has been introduced in Wales.

Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale led a debate in parliament earlier this month on the housing crisis caused by excessive second homes.

Speaking in the debate, he said: ‘I have spoken to MPs from rural communities from across this house – most of whom are currently Conservatives – and they all privately agree that this is a catastrophe.

‘They see it in their own constituencies. The collapse of affordable, available housing for local communities is killing towns and villages in Cornwall, Northumberland, Shropshire, Devon, Somerset, North Yorkshire, in the Highlands, in rural Wales as well as in Cumbria.’

Housing Minister Christopher Pincher acknowledged the adverse effects that large numbers of second homes and holiday lets can have in some areas and said he would look closely at proposals brought forward by MPs but warned that planning changes to limit second homes would also have ‘significant drawbacks’.

‘Free markets are fine when they work, but clearly this housing market is broken. It needs government intervention – we do not have the powers as a local authority, but the government does,’ argues Cllr Brook.

‘We need [the housing market] to work for the benefit of all. People come to see the iconic landscape of the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, and that is a cultural landscape that has been shaped by human intervention. If we do not have local people with local skills, it will not be the same anymore because we will not have people to maintain the look and feel of the place. It’s not just a purely selfish thing for wanting to keep the community going – it’s actually ultimately for the benefit of the visitors themselves.’

Photos by Dragos Gontariu and Greg Willson