Should holiday lets be restricted to buyers with long-term local links?

The activist group Acorn is lobbying a local council to deny people the right to buy a second home or let it out unless they have lived in the area for at least three years.

Acorn - which in the past has staged protests outside and inside letting agents’ offices in protest at rent levels and repairs in the rental sector - is making the move in Cornwall. 

On social media it says: “Over the last few decades renting and home ownership has become increasingly unsustainable in Cornwall. High demand for second homes and holiday lets have priced locals out of their communities and decimated towns and villages.

“Acorn Falmouth and Penryn demands that Falmouth Town Council introduce a special order of planning permission to restrict and regulate the ownership and construction of second homes and holiday lets. Please sign our petition today so we can make sure Cornwall Council start putting Homes Before Holidays.”

Although Falmouth council has no power to do so, Acorn demands that it creates an added planning permission class order for second homes and holiday lets.

It wants the council to be the body that grants consent for new builds and existing residences which are requested to be used as second homes or holiday lets, with what Acorn calls “an added clause that requires evidence of a minimum of three years residence in Cornwall in order to build or convert a property into a second home or holiday let.”

One Acorn member addressed a town council meeting in Falmouth earlier this week saying: "As everyone here is aware, there is a dire housing crisis in Cornwall. Property prices have skyrocketed for renting and purchasing while wages have remained the same. 

“With 661 per cent more short-term holiday listings as there were five years ago, the market has become all but completely inaccessible for most people.

"As a local to Falmouth, born-and-bred, I have seen our community change a lot throughout my life. I have seen it thrive, becoming an internationally renowned hub for culture, arts, and music. This has brought a lot of investment and interest into my hometown but it has also, because of the tourism these sectors bring, brought a lot of pressure on the housing market.

"I have seen my school friends, some with children, be made homeless or forced to leave their home and move up-country to find a stable living. This is unacceptable and change needs to happen. We must be welcoming to positive change, but it cannot be at the expense of the community of hard-working, normal people who already live here.”