‘Padstein’ bids to ban second home owners

A SEASIDE resort nicknamed after celebrity chef Rick Stein plans to ban second-home owners because locals are being priced out of the market.

Picturesque Padstow, dubbed “Padstein” because Rick, 74, owns restaurants and properties there, has a population of 2,500 people.

But numbers double every summer as holiday home owners and tourists flock there.

The north Cornwall port has seen house prices skyrocket to an average £423,000, when many locals cannot afford more than £200,000.

People also say their community is being gutted as many houses lie empty for most of the year. Padstow Town Council now wants to ban the sale of new-build properties to second-home owners.

A report said: “The area continues to be a magnet to second-home owners and retirement home-seekers.

“Many owners of property in the old town have also taken advantage of the holiday-let market, thereby reducing the number of dwellings available for purchase. All this has had the effect of making Padstow the fifth least affordable seaside place in England.”

Chef Rick is understood to own four restaurants, a bistro, deli, cafe, patisserie, gift shop, cookery school, hotel and cottages to rent.

Many residents back the secondhome ban plan.

Hannah Jade said: “We’re being evicted from our rented home and just to rub salt in the wound, we are next door to two houses which are empty 50 weeks of the year.”

Nessa Cooper attacked having “thousands of homes empty for half the year just so the rich can ‘pop down to Cornwall’ for a few weeks, whilst Cornish people cannot afford to live in their birthplace”.

The council said the plan would “bring greater balance and mixture to the local housing market and create new opportunities for people to live and work here”.

‘Homes lie empty half the year just so the rich can pop down for a few weeks’