New powers to curb second homes to be proposed

A new law aimed at curbing the spread of holiday lets and second homes has been put forward by an MP.

Andrew George, Lib Dem MP for St Ives, said his Private Members Bill would give local authorities like Cornwall Council the power to stop homes originally built for residents from being turned into holiday lets or second homes, if ministers back it.

George said the proposal, which will be presented to the House of Commons on 17 June, was about balancing local need with housing supply.

"It's about making sure that you can manage your stock so that the needs of the local community, the local population can be taken into account," he said.

Phyllis Rashleigh, who has lived in St Ives for nearly 80 years, said, pointing to a number of homes near the harbour: "These houses were once occupied by friends. They're now holiday lets or second homes.

"There's so many of them, nobody lives here anymore and we've lost all our facilities because if you're not living here, you're not using the libraries, the banks, the shops and places like that.

"So for the few of us that were left, there's nothing. If you come in the winter, you could walk up the town, it's a ghost town."

She said the cheapest houses around the harbour area cost about £500,000.

"You don't buy that on a minimum wage," she said. "And housing is the base of everything. If you haven't got anywhere to live, nothing else falls into place."

But tourism leaders warned the sector was being unfairly blamed.

Katie Warrens from the Cornwall Self-catering Collective said: "Cornwall is a very delicate ecosystem and tourism is one of those huge cogs that feeds all the other industries down there.

"If you keep messing with it, you're not only going to have a housing crisis, you're going to have an employment crisis here because we are going to lose jobs."

Former mayor Johnny Wells said it might be too late, warning there were already huge numbers of second homes.

He said: "We've already got a thousand houses in St Ives that are second homes or holiday homes… we're 10 years too late really with it."

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