Second home owners in Wales face soaring council tax bills after Labour-Plaid deal.

The Scottish government need to do the same as parts of the country are swamped by second home owners from the cities.

And in The Lake District

We spent a family holiday over 30y in beautiful Salcombe ❤️
We thought then it was VERY posh.
We didn’t (don’t) have much money but quietly enjoyed eavesdropping conversations between rich folk and feeling somewhat inferior. Which was daft really.

Life’s rich tapestry eh?

Calistemon

^People are either forgetting, or not realising that many of the old houses in Wales were left empty because their owners moved to new bungalows- warm and easy to look after.^

Dinahmo no locals wanted to buy the abandoned old forester's cottage our friends bought years ago in N Wales. It would have just ended up as a heap of stones.

Exactly my point. I would have loved a wreck if I could have got work. In my mid twenties both I and my OH wanted career changes and we thought of moving to Wales. I thought about teachers' training college but then found out that I would have to be able to speak Welsh so that was out.

So we stayed in London and he went to college to learn cabinet making and furniture restoration and I fell into articles. And we bought a wreck in London.

People talk about "high end work" whatever that is. the problem is that unless someone is working from a home office locals often don't want artisan type of work. You could be a painter or a sculptor but anything noisy is frowned upon. When we moved to Suffolk my OH applied for planning permission to turn a double garage into a workshop. Before he started work people started spreading lies and misinformation about what they'd seen and heard. The planners were keen for him to set up his business but because of the campaign got up against him (by the local vicar's wife) they were reluctant to grant the permission. In the end a Tory councilor, a farmer who lived down the road, went to the planning meeting, spoke up for my OH who was granted permission for two years.

When it came to renewing he asked if he could look at the previous application and he was given the file and was therefore able to read the rubbish that people had written. Planners are very well aware that neighbours will exaggerate or lie and the law changed between the first application and the second so that people could see wha was said about them.

I have a chalet on a holiday park in Kent, and I pay full council tax on it, despite the fact it is a glorified shed with no insulation. All I can get is a library card, I am not eligible for any other services. The largest portion of my council tax pays for adult social care, which of course I cannot make use of. I bought if for myself and the family to use for weekends and holidays as we are based in London, and this is on the coast, but we are coming to the point when the GC are leaving home one by one and it is being used less and less.
I am surprised that many of you are mentioning that the people with second homes bring their food with them and don’t eat out or use the local facilities. That is certainly not the case in our experience. We see plenty of visitors using the local pubs and cafes, and most shop in the nearest town too, so although a lot of locals don’t like the visitors, we bring in plenty of trade for them, whether they be plumbers or bakers.

This isn’t happening only in pretty coastal areas. Locals in big cities such as London can’t afford to buy homes. Plenty of buy-to-let landlords. Foreign money buys up property. Dwindling supply of social housing.
I admire the Welsh parliament for giving it a go to fix this, but doubt it’s the solution. A massive building programme would help. But that would impact on countryside, which no one wants. ?‍♀️

Great! Can the same apply to London homes bought by the filthy rich from all round the world? Especially those with D plates on their cars!

What's a D plate Mokeswife?

Is D German? Deutschland?

Diplomat.?

D for dysgwr? A Welsh L (learner) plate? I bet you don't see many of them in London.

Shizam

This isn’t happening only in pretty coastal areas. Locals in big cities such as London can’t afford to buy homes. Plenty of buy-to-let landlords. Foreign money buys up property. Dwindling supply of social housing.
I admire the Welsh parliament for giving it a go to fix this, but doubt it’s the solution. A massive building programme would help. But that would impact on countryside, which no one wants. ?‍♀️

Plenty of brownfield sites that could be built on. I always remember a row of beautiful old terrace houses near to a social club we used to go to in Birmingham. They were boarded up for years because Tescos were planning to build a store there which I don’t think was ever built. Often wonder what happened to them. And lots of terraced houses were saved from demolition and renovated in Newcastle if I remember right.

Coastpath

D for dysgwr? A Welsh L (learner) plate? I bet you don't see many of them in London.

I live in Wales and I've never seen one.
Perhaps everyone has passed their test round here

It's true! It must be - I Googled it. This is from Gov.UK

Using 'L' and 'P' plates
You must put an L plate on the front and back of your vehicle so they can be seen easily.

In Wales, you can use a D plate instead.

An L plate or D plate must:

have a red L or D on a white background
be the right size

www.gov.uk/driving-lessons-learning-to-drive/using-l-and-p-plates

If I see anyone with a D plate on their car I will avoid them!

D for Dipstick?

(DGD has been trying to teach me Welsh!)

A step on the road to full-on communism. I imagine everyone is looking forward to the day the authorities tell them where they can live.

(Hint:- they and their children will be in all the nice places and everyone else will be shoved up high rises.)

I've already started queuing for my bread

I am not looking forward to being shoved up the high rise.

I am not looking forward to being shoved up the high rise.

Oh God that made me howl with laughter!

Most if the Welsh don’t speak the language. If they drive out of Wales people over the border no one will know what it means, but I can understand those that want to keep their language and not let it disappear. Years ago if we went on holiday to Wales, Barmouth area, you walked in a shop and everyone started to speak in Welsh, we never got a smile and they acted as if they didn’t know what we were asking for, we tried it twice but have never been back. . It is a very beautiful country, but we heard of lots if other people that had the same treatment. I would like to holiday there this year and see see St Davids, The Gower and Cardiff to start. There were so many other places both here and abroad to visit so it never bothered us but know it was silly to be put off by two unpleasant experiences.

We have a second home in Spain. Twice a year we pay a holiday home tax and if we sell it we will pay a higher rate of capital gains tax than a local resident.

I don't know what the answer isbut don't the Channel Islands have a two tier pricing system with much lower prices for locals and also some houses reserved for islanders.

Living in north Cornwall I can assure from personal experience gone are the days when second homes were not in use.

And in Suffolk and Norfolk.

I lived in a village for years, 2 miles from town, only a pub and 2 buses ( if we were lucky) for amenities. Local land owner got planning permission for 8 houses and 4 ‘affordable’ houses. The ‘affordable’ had a proviso that they would only be occupied by people with a good local connection to the village. The buyer of the land got the ‘affordable’ no of houses down to 3. Three families who all rented in the village for years and worked in the town applied for these houses through the council - result -surprise, surprise- not one of them got one - three families from the north moved in - no association with the village, or town, and no jobs either. Unfortunately, this seems to be happening on a regular basis as friends that live on the other coast to me, have confirmed. Someone, somewhere is responsible for changing the criteria, and the public are never given the reasons