More anti-second home stickers have appeared in the Lake District.
The stickers, which show a house on fire and appear to threaten second home owners, were recently spotted stuck to a car parking sign in Grizedale Forest.
They were first reported last year in the Lake District and have been found on road signs in Windermere, Ambleside, Coniston, Hawkshead and Grasmere.
South Lakes Police said it was investigating the stickers at the time and working with the council to remove them where necessary.
The individual or individuals responsible for the stickers are not believed to have been identified – but we were able to track down the anonymous artist behind them.
While the anonymous creator declined a full interview, they did provide us with a statement on the stickers.
They said: “All I do is sell the stickers and what people choose to do with them is completely their own decision and I take absolutely no responsibility for any alleged vandalism or criminal damage.
“People are extremely angry about the housing crisis because it is clearly a political choice and everyone knows it.
“The government is choosing not to build enough council housing, they are choosing to continue the right to buy policy and they are choosing to allow the rich and foreign investors to buy residential properties as an investment opportunity or as a second home that’s empty 51 weeks of the year.
“There are hundreds of thousands of second homes and Airbnb properties in the UK stealing housing from communities and many councils in Wales and Cornwall have already started to implement policies to try and tackle this like double council tax on second homes and holiday lets, these policies need to be nationally implemented.
“People are merely using my stickers as an outlet for their discontent.
“People want to create an atmosphere that shows second home owners, who destroy communities and force families out of areas where they’ve lived for generations, that they are absolutely not welcome and not wanted.”
Second homes have remained a hot topic in the Lake District over the past few years.
Last year, Westmorland and Furness Council decided to charge a 100 per cent council tax premium for furnished second homes and unoccupied furnished properties. The charge was officially introduced in April this year.
Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, also spoke in Parliament in December to ask the Minister for Housing to consider giving councils and national park authorities in Cumbria the power to restrict second homes in the area.
The Lake District National Park Authority has also openly said that the region is facing immense pressure on existing housing stock – which it said is in part due to those buying second homes or using homes for holiday letting purposes.
It added that earnings in rural areas are lower than neighbouring urban areas in Cumbria, which makes it difficult for people relying on local wages to compete for housing in an open market.
The authority said that population in the Lake District is also decreasing for those of a working age, which has resulted in an unbalanced demographic and recruitment issues for local businesses.
It added that individuals and households who need to live in a particular area of the Lake District are often unable to find an available and suitable house for them or cannot afford one and that all too often, it is both, forcing local people to move to other parts of the country.
The authority said the increasing popularity of the Lake District also means there is a high demand for housing, which drives prices up due to the limited supply.
In 2022, a report from the Lake District National Park authority revealed that over 27 per cent – around 7,100 homes – of the Lake District’s 26,143 properties are used as holiday lets, second homes or are part of the self-contained B&B trade.
