Please welcome Cumbria Crack’s new columnist – Cumbria Cat. Will he have his claws out? Join him every week for his view of the county’s news. Let the cat guide you on a journey – a journey where we confront the challenges of the area, celebrate the culture of our people and cherish everything that attracts the many millions who visit.
Keswick holds a special place in my Lakeland heart. I wasn’t born in Keswick but I remember being able to take a train from the west of the county to visit the town and when it had a pencil factory, Yes, I am that old.
I visited again this week. It’s half an hour by car and a bit longer by bus pass, but even on a cloudy day with frequent showers, the majesty of the setting, surrounded by magnificent fells and lapped by a proper lake, with boats, gladdens the heart.
I lived in Keswick for four years back in the 1970s and while I love to visit a few times a year, I have neither the inclination or the financial clout to live there today. My wife and I like to visit because there are some wonderful shops selling local crafts alongside galleries and one where you can watch someone making fudge and some lovely little places for lunch or a coffee and a cake.
On Wednesday I got into conversation with a local shopkeeper, a Keswickian born and bred who agreed with me – Keswick was no longer a place to live as it had become something different, something more touristy, somewhere where even a local feels almost unwanted.
Here are just a couple of statistics he quoted: 85 per cent of all house sales go to people from outside the area. Most of those businesses that have developed to service the now year long tourist trade, cannot find staff to work in them. Staff have to bussed in from West Cumbria, to work in the shops, hotels, restaurants and cafes as the pool of local workers has long since dried up.
Second homes are a national issue
Of course, this isn’t new. Two years ago, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a local councillor highlighted the unsustainable increase in second homes and holiday lets in the Keswick postcode area. Today, despite a return of foreign holidays, the situation is even worse. Even a local café owner tried – but sadly failed – to raise the cash to buy out the freehold of her building to protect her business and to provide long term rental accommodation for locals.
And the problem isn’t confined to Keswick of the Lakes. Cornwall has the same issues and recently a parish poll in Whitby voted overwhelmingly to say that new build houses should only be available to local buyers – those who already have roots in the community or those who work in the community. While the poll is non binding, it demonstrates local democracy in action expressing strongly, the will of the local people.
Of course, a similar poll in Keswick would be less effective as there are few new homes being built in and around the town, and locals only restrictions cannot be imposed retrospectively, but there is another option and one where the new Cumberland Council and national government need to work together.
Already, the Government is closing the loophole that allowed second homeowners to avoid paying council tax by pretending to offer the property for let. But it needs to do more… far more.
Eyewatering taxes are the answer
Last month in Parliament, Westmorland and Lonsdale MP, Tim Farron asked the housing minister to consider changing the law to allow local planning authorities to limit second home ownership. He said he would consider it but his government has already conceded that when the £400 energy rebate is taken from household energy bills, it will include a £400 discount to every second home owner who will get double the rebate while only living in one property at a time.
Add to that the number of second home owners, AirBnB owners and self catering let owners, who have taken advantage of the business rates rebates for many years with some not even declaring their property portfolio investments to HMRC, and the second home/AirBnB/holiday let owner has enjoyed a windfall while so many tens of thousands, even those in full-time work, have had to resort to food banks.
It goes against the grain of our ‘free country’ to tell people how to spend their money or to levy taxes on those who have seen their London/Home Counties property value fly and who now want to get out of the urban rat race, but levy eyewatering taxes is what we need to do.
If we don’t, very soon, places like Keswick will be preserved in aspic as a tourist spot to be seen but not actually lived in.
- Do you agree with Cumbria Cat? Let us know what you think – or if you want to suggest a subject for him to talk about (cat treat optional)- email us at admin@cumbriacrack.com
About Cumbria Cat
Born in Cumberland and, from 2023, will be back living in Cumberland, having spent most of the past 50 years in some place called Cumbria, this cat has used up all nine lives as well as a few others.
Always happy to curl up on a friendly lap, the preference is for a local lap and not a lap that wants to descend on the county to change it into something it isn’t. After all, you might think Cumbria/Cumberland/Westmorland is a land forged by nature – the glaciers, the rivers, breaking down the volcanic rocks or the sedimentary layers – but, in reality, the Cumbria we know today was forged by generations of local people, farmers, miners, quarriers, and foresters.
This cat is a local moggy, not a Burmese, Ocicat or Persian, and although I have been around the block a few times, whenever I jump, I end up on my feet back in my home county. I am passionate about the area, its people, past, present and future, and those who come to admire what we hold dear, be it lakes and mountains, wild sea shores, vibrant communities or the history as rich and diverse as anywhere in the world.
