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Home General Election 2024

Second homes: Whitehaven & Workington candidates answer your question

by Cumbria Crack
28/06/2024
in General Election 2024
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We asked you to submit your questions to candidates standing in the 2024 General Election.

From all your submissions, we chose 10 that represented the broad issues you wanted answers to.

We asked every candidate we had contact details for to respond.

We’ll be publishing them in the run-up to the General Election with the responses from the candidates who replied from each constituency.

These are the answers are from candidates standing in the Whitehaven & Workington constituency.

Your question:

What will you and your party do to look at second homes in tourism hotspots, which are stopping local people getting on the property ladder?

Jill Perry, of the Green Party

We recognise this as a serious problem. It was an issue that was mentioned on the doorstep in every village I represent on Cumberland Council.

I grew up in Loweswater and it was already happening there when I was a teenager but it has spread far and wide to villages outside the national park too.

In the council Green councillors supported the vote to increase the council tax to 200% on second homes. This won’t be the whole solution though, as it will be a drop in the ocean of money made from tourism properties and second homes.

We will increase the supply of social housing by 150,000 a year and give protection to renters with local authorities given the power to control rents if they become unfairly high, so that while waiting to buy, local people can live close to where they want to buy, without fear of no-fault eviction.

Andrew Johnson, the Conservative Party

There are two issues here. One is preventing the hollowing out of our communities through second homes, and the other is building more homes for genuinely local people.

We’ve introduced new rules to control short-term lets and improve access to affordable housing, plus given councils the powers to introduce new council tax premiums as well as moving to abolish the Furnished Holiday Lettings’ tax regime.

But at the same time, we can’t ignore the valuable contribution that our visitor economy brings to Cumbria.

Many businesses rely on tourists, and they all need somewhere to stay. We need more affordable homes that local people can afford to rent or buy. And that means building new homes for local people, especially to support key parts of the economy like health and hospitality.

Chris Wills, Liberal Democrats

Housing priority should have a radical shift to social and genuinely affordable homes. The private markets will look after themselves, Central Government must empower Local Authorities to build and acquire social, genuinely affordable homes.

Local authorities should also be allowed to tax holiday home owners sufficiently to obtain significant revenue that can be invested into Council steered rental property.

Josh MacAlister, Labour

While short-term holiday lets bring many benefits, those benefits must be weighed against the impact on local people and in many places the Government hasn’t got that balance right.

Excessive rates of second home ownership have a direct impact on communities, and especially the availability and affordability of homes for local families and young people.

I think there is a case for a licensing system to protect genuine holiday lets and thriving tourism, whilst sustainably managing the number of second homes.

David Surtees, Reform UK

Cumbria Crack received no answers from Mr Surtees. Just before the election was called, he was diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing six weeks of treatment, which he said had curtailed his ability to campaign.

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