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 Westmorland & Lonsdale constituency.
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?
Tim Farron, Liberal Democrats
We must change planning law so that second homes are a separate category of planning use so local authorities have the power to make sure that we stop more family homes from being turned into empty second homes which are robbing our communities of a permanent population.
I put forward an amendment to the Government’s Levelling Up in the last Parliament which would have done just that, but sadly it was voted down by Conservative MPs.
James Townley, Reform UK
The real issue is the lack of affordable housing. Banning second home ownership is not feasible and could negatively impact the local economy.
However, we should incentivise second home owners to rent out their properties affordably to local residents in need.
Relaxing planning rules to build more affordable housing in rural areas is essential. We are losing our younger population, and addressing this issue is crucial for the prosperity of communities in Cumbria.
Phil Clayton, the Green Party
We would ensure that second homes would require planning permission for change of use.
Councils would have the power to decide whether a property could become a second home and in most cases the answer would be no, especially in areas with a high concentration of second homes and holiday homes.
Izzy Solabarrieta, Heritage Party
Thank you for this question. Housing is a huge issue. I would suggest that both second homes and holiday lets are contributing to the current crisis.
Second homes is hardest to tackle. Some second home owners visit most weekends, and speaking to local shop owners, some have told me they really benefit from second home owners who visit regularly, as they use the local facilities. But other second homes might only be visited a few days a year.
When Airbnb first started it was marketed as a spare bedroom in your home, but it has exploded and is now big business, mopping up entire houses.
The Heritage Party believes every British family should be able to own their own home. I would add that every family should at least be able to rent, securely long-term and affordably.
Here in Cumbria there are three issues preventing that:
- A shortage of homes
- What homes there are are not available
- The price of homes when they do come to the market is far too high.
So to tackle issue 1, we need to build houses. Not the hugely expensive, hideous executive homes that are popping up everywhere and ruining our landscape, but affordable houses that are in keeping with the character of the area.
Affordable needs to mean affordable, not just a word added to a business plan to get a few boxes ticked.
To tackle issue 2, we need to make sure some of these houses become long-term homes again. I’d like to see insurance raised on houses that are occupied for less than 90 days in each year. Currently houses must not be empty for more than 30 days for insurance purposes, I’d like this to be reduced to a maximum of 18 days empty, before insurance fails.
In terms of rented properties, since 2017 landlords, who provide homes, have been taxed bizarrely. They’ve been taxed on income, not on profit. This means, they’ve had to pay tax on the whole rental income, never mind what the cost of the mortgage is.
Meanwhile, holiday home owners have only had to pay tax on their profits. Therefore there has been no incentive for landlords to keep renting to tenants, it has been far more profitable to rent short term.
The Tories have planned for this tax scheme to change next year, but I fear it will be too little too late. The tax system needs changing, so that if you have a holiday let you pay higher taxes, if you provide housing you are not taxed so heavily. This would bring some houses back into the market..
I see this personally all the time in our bathroom business here in the South Lakes. Landlords who have rented their property for years can no longer keep going and switch it to a holiday let, for far more income and often an easier life.
To tackle issue 3, house prices, we need to ask why they are so high. What is causing the demand? Cumbria has seen a large number of people move here following the lockdowns and the new working from home systems, but I think that has settled now.
More worryingly, the UK population jumped 9 million from 2000 to 2020, we need to build 200 new homes every day to meet with demand. We are not building that number, so where is everyone is going to live?
The Heritage Party has some radical policies. These are radical times! We need to prioritise British people. We stop mass immigration.
Foreign national who come by the proper channels are very much welcome. They may buy a single property, which must be their main residence, and only after being here for 5 years.
This would free up those second homes owned by foreign nationals.
