Dear Dr. Burgess,

We have not yet received our copy of your latest Report but, based on the Press coverage, I suspect that it, like all the many Reports on rural housing produced to date, fails to address the fundamental issue. Before making recommendations on how any problem could be solved, it is best to quantify and qualify the problem itself, yet none of the Reports to date, have done so.

How many affordable rural houses are needed, where are they needed, and what kind of houses should they be?

The research carried out last year by various Councils to guidelines issued by the ODPM was severely flawed, mixing quantitative and qualitative data and confusing aspiration with fact. However, I doubt that however carefully such a research project is constructed; it could ever provide a completely accurate picture. We have therefore recommended to the Lyons Inquiry, and now the Taylor Review, that the only way to accurately quantify the requirement, and qualify the true need, is to consult the Parish Councils in the villages. These Parish Councils are often ignored by the Districts and Counties on planning issues, but they are the only way to avoid the mistakes of the past, which has seen affordable housing created in villages without thought for the infrastructure, and houses that have not been bought by locals, but by people who want to move out of urban areas into the countryside.

The above, and the way in which the £40,000,000 p.a. revenue from reduced discount on rural second homes, intended to provide affordable housing for sale, has been mismanaged by the District and County Councils, shows that they need some firm direction on what needs to be done. Your 2006 Report on the ways in which this money is being spent was an eye opener.

North Yorkshire, for example, who receive over £3,000,000 each year from us in reduced discount, to quote your 2006 Report ‘rather than directly fund house building, £300,000 has been set aside to fund a £4,000,000 capital fund for a three year investment programme to fund affordable rural housing provision. The Housing Corporation agreed match funding of £4,000,000’. So instead of using the £10million or so that we have provided to date for that purpose, they have sucked in more public money, and created a massive debt.

Or the South Lakeland District Council who recently had a meeting with the Housing Minister to demand that second home owners pay full Council Tax, plus 20%, so the funds could be used to provide affordable rural housing. When I challenged the Council CEO to tell me how he had spent the £12,000,000 we have provided so far for affordable housing, he replied that £2,100,000 has been spent on 80 affordable homes, comprising 72 social house for rent, and 8 shared equity. Now, we cannot be blamed for the shortage of social housing, that’s down to the council house sell-off, so our £12,000,000 has, effectively, bought 8 shared equity homes.

There are, according to Government statistics, only 166,000 second homes in England, less than 1% of housing stocks, and we believe that there are only a dozen or so villages where second homes amount to more than 25% of the houses. The problems are so small in the scheme of things that any competent organisation funded with our £40,000,000 each year and a few planning initiatives, could sort it out in a few years. In the past two years, we had very little action but Reports from, your Commission, the Affordable Rural Housing Commission, the Joseph Rowntree Trust, HRH the Prince of Wales’s Trust, The Lyons Inquiry, and we now await the Taylor Report. Over £120,000,000 has been raised from second homeowners specifically to provide affordable houses for sale to local people, and very little of the money has been spent on that. I can only describe he situation to date as a colossal waste of everyone’s time, and our money.

Thanks to the miss-information put out by opportunistic politicians and headline seeking organisations such as Savills, local people in rural areas firmly believe that second homeowners are responsible for any shortage of affordable rural housing, and this has led to threats against second homes in Cornwall, Cumbria, and Wales from the so called Liberation Armies. That is why we are interested in getting the situation sorted out, and we believe that the first step in doing so has to be quantification and qualification of the problem.

I have coped this to the Minister and other interested parties.

Yours sincerely,

Chairman, Association of Second Home Owners. 

September/October 2007.

This has been a busy period for media contact, and thanks go to Michael Moszynski for handling a TV interview with Al Jazeera.
We now have a useful Fact Sheet, which helps to prevent journalists publishing misleading information such as that put out by the estate agency Savills. It quotes the latest Government figures showing that in 2005 there were 166,000 second homes in England, less than 1% of the housing stocks. We can extrapolate that to a GB figure of less than 200,000, as compared to the oft quoted Savills figure of 350,000. Many journalists lose interest when this is pointed out to them, as even our fiercest critics find it hard to justify the claim that second homes deprive people of affordable housing, when faced with these figures.
Following threats made against second/holiday home owners in Cumbria by the 'Westmorland Liberation Army' we liaised with the Cumbria Police to provide advice to our Members. Although no arrests were made in Cumbria, we were delighted to see that an individual suspected of running the Cornwall Liberation Army was apprehended, which will hopefully act as a disincentive to his fellow idiots in Cumbria and Wales.
For some time now we have been warning certain media and politicians that throwing accusations at second home owners would create resentment amongst local people. One MP in particular, Tim Farron, has sought to blame us for the lack of affordable housing in Cumbria, using some emotive language in the process. Having now met with Mr. Farron, we would like to think that he was unaware of the distress being caused to our Members - some of the most productive and respectable members of society - by the hate this generated amongst some locals. Not only was that unfair and unreasonable, but down right dangerous.
Finally, can we remind our Members that they have a right to vote in local elections, and not to be put off by the inaccurate statements made by some local Councils. This may cause some local politicians to think twice before bad-mouthing second homeowners who could become potential voters.

August 07

At the request of various Members, following the threats to second homeowners, we have resisted the temptation to publicly comment on recent letters and articles by various journalists and politicians, who seem intent on using inaccurate statistics to stir anger amongst local people. It is frustrating, because the latest Government figures released this month, show that there were 166,000 second homes in England in 2005, less than 1% of housing stocks.
We have written privately to editors and politicians correcting the grossly exaggerated figures they use, but if that does not work, and we doubt that it will, we will need to challenge these people in the public arena.
Your Chairman is due to meet Tim Farron MP in October, which should be interesting.

June/July ‘07

Following the well publicised threats to ‘incomers’ in Cornwall, the Westmorland Gazette has received a letter from the ‘Popular Liberation Army of Westmorland’ threatening damage to holiday homes and holiday lets in Cumbria.
The Police are taking this seriously, and urging both owners and the community to be extra vigilant, and to report anything suspicious.
The Crime Prevention Officer in the Area has prepared some advice which can be found on the Information Page.
In 2005 we warned Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, that his media attacks on second homeowners would stir up resentment amongst local people, and could lead to this kind of threat. He has continued with his campaign, and his reaction to the above has been to call for a Parliamentary debate on second home ownership, which he publicised this week in the local Lake District media, using emotive statements such as ‘excessive second home ownership in many parishes is leading to the creation of ghost towns’.
At a time when any right thinking person would see the sense in keeping quiet, and letting the Police do their job, he has gone beyond irresponsible.