A home in the country...

[simonineaston]

I expect you, dear reader, have enjoyed the odd stay in a cottage let for a week-end or perhaps a whole week or two. I recall with fondness, trips to St Ives, Snowdonia, the Lynn peninsular etc.etc. when we stayed in lovely places, owned by someone else and let out to holiday makers like us. Once we all stayed at Black Mill Cottage which later turned up as the setting for a tv murder mystery.
Recently we learn that country locations are being ruined by the increase in ownership of second (and perhaps third and fourth etc.) so when I heard a suggestion on the radio this morning, I thought it sounded sensible. The suggestion was that the properties should simply be registered with the local council as businesses, rather than private domestic dwellings. Any views?

[Cugel]

I expect you, dear reader, have enjoyed the odd stay in a cottage let for a week-end or perhaps a whole week or two. I recall with fondness, trips to St Ives, Snowdonia, the Lynn peninsular etc.etc. when we stayed in lovely places, owned by someone else and let out to holiday makers like us. Once we all stayed at Black Mill Cottage which later turned up as the setting for a tv murder mystery.
Recently we learn that country locations are being ruined by the increase in ownership of second (and perhaps third and fourth etc.) so when I heard a suggestion on the radio this morning, I thought it sounded sensible. The suggestion was that the properties should simply be registered with the local council as businesses, rather than private domestic dwellings. Any views?

How those houses - made to be homes not holiday lets - are registered won't solve the problem of village depopulation forced by rising house prices that become unaffordable to locals. Nor will they solve the problem that the holiday makers renting such a place find .... that all the local services have disappeared in face of a lack of turnover most of the year (outside the holiday letting season) forcing visitors to drive many miles to find a shop, garage, pub or similar services.

There is a solution: build dedicated holiday parks with cabins, static caravans and similar that are for holiday stays but not for year-round living. There are already many of these in Wales, for example. Being made for holidays rather than as full homes, they don't deplete the local housing market of affordable homes bought by absent landlords at inflated prices then used only 4/12ths of the year. They also tend to contain the sort of facilities visitors want, from bar, cafe and restaurant to shop, laundry and swimming pool.

Personally I'd ban ownership of second homes of every type, everywhere apart from very exceptional circumstances. If you want to holiday in a second-home manner, you can do it on a holiday park in a cabin or static caravan. No need to eradicate whole villages and their ways of life. No need to force local populations on low wages to also have to find another wodge for extensive daily travel from the remaining slums 15 miles away that they can afford.

********
I speak from some experience. Me and t'ladywife had a log cabin built on a Welsh holiday park then used it for 10 years before selling it. When we weren't in it, friends and relatives were. When they and we weren't in it, a local Welsh lad was, using it amongst other abodes here and there in his peripatetic working lifestyle all over West Wales, rent free but in exchange for basic maintenance tasks such as repainting or fixing a bit of decking.

There are much better alternatives to the plague of well-off second-home buyers damaging whole villages and their former inhabitants, often irreversibly, just so they can rent a house for a few weeks per year or (worst of the lot) use them personally for only 4 or 5 weeks of the year.

***********
But this is a pink-livered socialist notion rather than a rich winner takes all notion, so must be wrong.

Cugel

[Carlton green]

The situation is complex and the first answer is simple: there is no simple answer.

I like the above idea of static caravans, lodges and mobile homes - considered one myself - but they are a blot on the landscape.

A pal bought a tumbledown property in Wales that no one else wanted - similar are, I believe, available elsewhere - and had it renovated. It’s now a holiday home but has said pal taken away from the local housing stock or turned a discarded wreck into something more useful?

I’m not much in favour of bricks and mortar holiday homes in picturesque places (it can create out of balance) but folk want to buy stuff, maybe the rich have too much disposable income and society would be better if the taxman took more off of them …

[Nearholmer]

It is complicated even further by the fact that local economies in some places are heavily dependent upon income from tourism.

I like Cugel’s idea of designated holiday parks (although why it has to be entire parks I’m not sure; why not individual, purpose-built, houses too?), but I agree with Carlton that many, especially on the Welsh Coast are true blots on the landscape. The same applies in Norfolk, but it’s harder to get high enough to appreciate the extent of the blots!

One solution might be to enforce far more rigorous planning controls, reduce permitted densities, and reinforce the “visual impact” criteria, but that would shove up the prices ….. which would price-out the least well-off altogether, and probably displace some users to overseas holidays, by air, contributing to a different, and frankly worse, form of pollution.

Another option, which I think already applies to some extent but might need to be tightened, would be to designate “holiday areas” and “not holiday areas” at quite a local level, banning year-round occupancy in the holiday areas, and banning second-home ownership and letting business (including the very sneaky AirBnBs) inside the “not” zones …… quite how a trad B&B, or a trad hotel fits into that I’m not sure though.

[Jdsk]

...
The suggestion was that the properties should simply be registered with the local council as businesses, rather than private domestic dwellings.
...

Sort of. But I'd do it as part of a completely different system of wealth tax, which would include different categories of domestic accommodation.

Another option, which I think already applies to some extent but might need to be tightened, would be to designate “holiday areas” and “not holiday areas” at quite a local level, banning year-round occupancy in the holiday areas, and banning second-home ownership and letting business (including the very sneaky AirBnBs) inside the “not” zones …… quite how a trad B&B, or a trad hotel fits into that I’m not sure though.

And the categories of that wealth tax could include elements of zoning.

...

Any policy should also include much greater provision of social accommodation for those with local connections who want to stay there. High quality accommodation for all should be an explicit objective that is quite different from accumulation of personal capital or profit for developers.

Jonathan

[Cugel]

The situation is complex and the first answer is simple: there is no simple answer.

I like the above idea of static caravans, lodges and mobile homes - considered one myself - but they are a blot on the landscape.

A pal bought a tumbledown property in Wales that no one else wanted - similar are, I believe, available elsewhere - and had it renovated. It’s now a holiday home but has said pal taken away from the local housing stock or turned a discarded wreck into something more useful?

I’m not much in favour of bricks and mortar holiday homes in picturesque places (it can create out of balance) but folk want to buy stuff, maybe the rich have too much disposable income and society would be better if the taxman took more off of them …

A blot, you say - the holiday home parks? Here's the lodge we had built on a very pleasant West Wales holiday park.

Not necessarily blots, then, although there are certainly some poor examples to be found. However, if planning permissions and other council oversights were properly applied, blot-prevention is easy. Such parks can be like that on which we built a lodge some 12 years ago - lots of trees and shrubby parkland containing wildlife (97 species of birds counted on this site) with lodges spread out rather than jammed in cheek by jowl.

Such places are very pleasant to stay at, have many facilities and don't take away from local housing stock. They can be used or let all year 'round other than for the usual 2 winter months forbidden by the council bylaws to stop them becoming like those USA trailer parks full of degenerating cheap buildings littered with discarded consumer not-very-durables.

The're usually away from established villages or towns yet have plenty of on-site facilities. They don't deplete the local housing stock available to locals, kill villages for all but 3 months of the year or drive up house prices.

Cugel

[al_yrpal]

I have stayed in holiday cottages which were probably second homes and enjoyed it. I bought a dilapidated cottage in Cornwall and enjoyed it as a second home for 10 years. I didnt let it but my kids and close friends used it without charge. I employed local builders to renovate it and when we sold it it had quadrupled in value. Council tax and water bills were discounted by 25%.
I stayed in a mobile home for a week recently and didnt really enjoy it.
Some areas get swamped by homes like mine which affects local people adversely. In these cases the Local Council should be able to register all such homes and limit their numbers.
I do not support eliminating them and driving everyone onto faceless holiday parks. This is still a relatively free country where those with the funds to do so can enjoy the fruits of their labours. The fact that this also includes the less deserving is just life. As to the question of whether second homes should be taxed as businesses, undoubtably they should if they are let out for profit and the owners should pay income tax on the proceeds.

Al

[Nearholmer]

although there are certainly some poor examples to be found

Some???!!!

Tasteful dacha-parks are one thing, but you surely can’t have failed to notice the vast acreages, square mileages even, of “caravan parks” that fringe significant parts of the coasts of England and Wales, and crop-up in a fair few inland spots too.

That “visual intrusion”, to use the technical term for a blot on the landscape, is the price we pay for a great many people having an affordable seaside holiday, me and mine included sometimes, so it’s another part of the complexity, another case of trade-offs.

[pete75]

I expect you, dear reader, have enjoyed the odd stay in a cottage let for a week-end or perhaps a whole week or two. I recall with fondness, trips to St Ives, Snowdonia, the Lynn peninsular etc.etc. when we stayed in lovely places, owned by someone else and let out to holiday makers like us. Once we all stayed at Black Mill Cottage which later turned up as the setting for a tv murder mystery.
Recently we learn that country locations are being ruined by the increase in ownership of second (and perhaps third and fourth etc.) so when I heard a suggestion on the radio this morning, I thought it sounded sensible. The suggestion was that the properties should simply be registered with the local council as businesses, rather than private domestic dwellings. Any views?

Most are registered as businesses when, as most are, they're used as holiday lets for much of the year. That way they avoid council tax and benefit from from small business rate relief, which usually means they won't pay anything at all. It also meant they got the £10,000 grant from the retail, hospitality and leisure fund, or the similar amount from the small buisness grant fund.

[pete75]

although there are certainly some poor examples to be found

Some???!!!

Tasteful dacha-parks are one thing, but you surely can’t have failed to notice the vast acreages, square mileages even, of “caravan parks” that fringe significant parts of the coasts of England and Wales, and crop-up in a fair few inland spots too.

That “visual intrusion”, to use the technical term for a blot on the landscape, is the price we pay for a great many people having an affordable seaside holiday, me and mine included sometimes, so it’s another part of the complexity, another case of trade-offs.

Ingoldmells near Skegvegas

[rjb]

This isn't about how you spend your own money. It's down to cash strapped councils trying to squeeze some cash out of landlords whilst making it look as if they are protecting residents.
Can you hear the pips squeak yet.

[UpWrong]

We have a real housing crisis in this over-populated country of ours. Second homes need to be taxed to the hilt, and I'm all for the money going to local councils. Yes, ramp the taxes up gradually to give 2nd home owners time to sell if they need to.

If the property is being let out, rented out etc then ther local council should be able to set business rates accordingly.

[pete75]

How those houses - made to be homes not holiday lets - are registered won't solve the problem of village depopulation forced by rising house prices that become unaffordable to locals. Nor will they solve the problem that the holiday makers renting such a place find .... that all the local services have disappeared in face of a lack of turnover most of the year (outside the holiday letting season) forcing visitors to drive many miles to find a shop, garage, pub or similar services.


Cugel

Not always. Sometimes it can increase them. Take a look at this place, Burnham Market on the Norfolk coast. The area is loused out with visitors from London and the home counties, and many businesses have set up to meet their needs or rather desires and whims.

https://burnhammarket.co.uk/

[pete75]

We have a real housing crisis in this over-populated country of ours. Second homes need to be taxed to the hilt, and I'm all for the money going to local councils. Yes, ramp the taxes up gradually to give 2nd home owners time to sell if they need to.

If the property is being let out, rented out etc then ther local council should be able to set business rates accordingly.

They can and do. In most cases the charge is nil because they attract small business rate relief.

[Carlton green]

We have a real housing crisis in this over-populated country of ours.

Now that’s the core of the problem: overpopulation.

The other day a friend asked me whether I had any holidays booked to which I replied no. I rarely go away and that’s because I’m fortunate enough to have a reasonable home in a quite pleasant location. Now here’s the thing, society needs to get its head around making where we already live into better places to live and use recreation time. I’m lucky to have a good local parks to use and open countryside nearby, rather than jetting off to the sun and ‘wonder places’ we’d be better off paying higher taxes that are spent on making where we live a better place to be.