A Conservative MP in a tourist region has blamed the switch of rental accommodation to Airbnbs for a shortage of places for tourism employees to live.

Exmoor and West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has told the West Somerset Free Press that the conversion of homes into holiday lets had provided a short-term boost for the tourist trade, but had a downside.

“Thousands of seasonal businesses across the South West relied on those properties to provide staff accommodation in summer – and suddenly that availability was closed off. We then had the ludicrous position of staff working in Cornish businesses having to commute up to 30 miles a day from Devon, where some accommodation was still available, and of restaurants right across the region only serving food at midday or in the evening because they simply did not have the staff to do both.

“On the wider front, holiday accommodation units were being created in hundreds of smaller houses, so removing them from the property market and depriving local couples of the chance to acquire them as their first homes.

“It is a highly complex situation and although it is one largely limited to the prime tourism areas the impacts are severe and I am glad the government has recognised that and is going to act.”

In October last year it was revealed in a Commons debate that Treasury officials were looking into tax and other fiscal measures to cool the market for second homes and properties for short-lets in popular holiday hotspots across the UK.

During that debate Richard Fuller, then the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, said the government wantred to do something to stop holiday hotspots in effect becoming inaccessible and unaffordable for locals.

In June last year – some 10 months ago now – the government formally launched a review into the effect of short-term holiday lets in a bid to improve the holiday letting market for those living in popular tourism destinations.

A scheme, proposed in the review, could involve physical checks of premises to ensure regulations in areas including health and safety, noise and anti-social behaviour are obeyed.

Further measures the government was said to be considering at that time included a registration ‘kitemark’ scheme with spot checks for compliance with rules on issues such as gas safety, a self-certification scheme for hosts to register with before they can operate, and better information or a single source of guidance setting out the legal requirements for providers.