Second-home levy backed
North Yorkshire County Council has pushed forward a move to launch a 100 per cent council tax premium on second homes, saying action is long overdue to stop the county’s many “ghost villages” having “the heart ripped out of them”.
Second home owners in North Yorkshire look set to be the first in England to pay double council tax after the county council’s executive recommended the scheme be started from April 2024, should Government legislation to grant local authorities such powers be approved.
Just hours after the decision, members of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority enthusiastically backed the move and agreed to write to the council to support the extra charge.
The decision also follows last year’s Rural Commission recommending a charge is levied on second homes and used to finance affordable housing, helping to reverse the exodus of young families from scenic areas of the county.
Scalby and the Coast division councillor Derek Bastiman said: “I accept that there are ghost villages – there are many throughout the whole of the county.”
Danby and Mulgrave division councillor David Chance said in the North York Moors village where he lived “there are so many second homes now that the heart has been ripped out”.
Some opposition councillors have claimed the premium will prove difficult to implement while people who have owned properties in the county for decades say the move will simply make second homes the preserve of the rich.
The council has forecast the charge will raise more than £14m a year.
Cllr Gareth Dadd, the authority’s finance boss, said: “We have seen certain villages and certain communities in North Yorkshire, as identified by the Rural Commission, altered beyond recognition due to the high hotspots of second homes. We cannot stop, nor would we want to, people making a choice to buy second homes, but some of the effects of that has to be mitigated.”
Executive members said the main reason for implementing the charge was to protect communities rather than raise funds.