Western Morning News (Saturday)
Homeless total matches number of holiday lets
HOUSING campaigners have expressed exasperation at figures that show Cornwall has as many families waiting for social housing as there are holiday homes in the county.
The numbers, published by CPRE The Countryside Charity from local authorities, Airbnbs and other holiday sites, show that Cornwall has 661 per cent more short-term listings than there were five years ago.
As well as this, the charity, formerly known as the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said there were roughly 15,000 families on social housing waiting lists as of September 2021 – with roughly the same number of holiday lets available.
CPRE said this was a sign that families were losing out on a stable home due to how many houses were now used for tourists.
Dawn Rudgewick-Brown, a former homelessness charity worker who found herself on the social housing waiting list after being evicted from her rented home in Truro, said the figures did not surprise her, but that it was a “ridiculous” situation.
She said: “I don’t understand how anyone could say the two aren’t linked – families waiting and the number of holiday lets. If you walk down a street in Cornwall, you can find 15 houses which aren’t being lived in. It seems mad.
“People are entitled to buy what and where they want to, but there has to be a consequence for having two houses, or renting one out to holidays. There has to be a higher council tax, or something.
“It has to be made less attractive. Cornwall has enough touristy hotels, and other places to stay.”
Ms Rudgewick-Brown, 51, and her two children are one of the many families in emergency accommodation, sitting on the Cornwall Homechoice list waiting to be called up to move into social housing.
Currently in St Austell, Ms Rudgewick-Brown said she knew plenty of places where the lights were “out” when it was not summer, due to the sheer number of holiday lets.
Monique Collins, who runs Newquay Drop In and Share Centre (Disc), was equally aghast at the figures from CPRE.
Newquay Disc helps homeless people, and those at risk of homelessness, with food packages and assistance paying bills.
Ms Collins said: “People are still selling up or turning their spare homes into Airbnbs; it’s happening again ahead of Easter. It’s a repeat of last year.”
Many landlords have capitalised on the huge number of people holidaying in the UK due to Covid restrictions by switching from being residential landlords to offering holiday lets.
CPRE’s chief executive, Crispin Truman, suggested that, nationwide, higher taxes for second homes and a better definition of ‘affordable’ needed to be put in place.
Ms Collins suggested similar fixes, adding: “Before, people might have rented out a spare room for someone to live in. Now they’ll just Airbnb it.
“We’ve turned into a very greedy county. You can’t stop people from selling, it’s their right. But there just isn’t a solution for people living here.
“The need has trebled in recent years. And people not selling up are putting rent up, while a working family’s wages are not.”
A spokesperson for Cornish homelessness charity Harbour Housing said the figures added fuel to the argument for changes like those outlined by CPRE. They said: “These findings from the CPRE are shocking and yet not at all surprising. As more individuals and families increasingly see themselves being on the receiving end of eviction notices and facing homelessness, it’s just another reminder that something has to change. We’d like to see the Government take the not-new issue of housing shortage, which has become something of an inferno in Cornwall, seriously. Strategies that might work elsewhere might not in Cornwall, and for that reason we’d like to see the Government listen when we say there is a serious problem and it’s getting worse.
“We’d like to see measures such as the requirement of planning permission for any property which is proposed to be changed into a holiday home or Airbnb.
“Furthermore, greater investment is needed to provide genuinely affordable housing in Cornwall for those who need to rent.”