By Fred Redwood
Second homes have never been so popular. Before lockdown, just 3 per cent of Britons had a retreat in the countryside or the coast – somewhere to recharge the batteries.
Since then, a rush of successful city-dwellers have sought a spare pied a terre. Parts of Cornwall, where one in ten properties is a second home, are full to bursting over the summer months, as is the Lake District and yachting hotspots in Devon and Dorset.
It’s meant big business for celebrity chefs, bar owners and fashionable clothes chains. However, not everyone is delighted at having half of London and the Home Counties arrive as part-time neighbours. Locals blame the incomers for escalating property prices. The residents of harbour towns often get squeezed out to live on the outskirts. And young people who work all year round are unable to get on the housing ladder.
Legislation is going through in an attempt to claw back this situation. Second homeowners in England could face paying twice the amount of council tax from April 2025, while in Wales (as of April 2023) the maximum level at which local authorities can set council tax premiums for second homes has already increased to 300 per cent. Whether these increases will have the desired effect – to bring more first-time buyer homes to the market – is another matter. Critics maintain that these charges are mere ‘peanuts’ to the wealthy second homeowners.
We’ve spoken with locals, estate agents, second homeowners and councillors to reveal the UK’s most welcoming and unwelcoming towns and villages.
Dartmouth and Newton Ferrers, Devon
Second homeowners are less than popular in the Devon yachting Mecca of Salcombe. Some 57 per cent of the properties here are second homes and the locals complain when the wealthy incomers build enormous mega mansions, ruining their view of the harbour. However, just along the coast it is a different story.
‘The people of Dartmouth, being a naval base, are used to newcomers and the locals are very welcoming,’ says Rupert Stephenson of Black Brick, a property search agency. ‘Newton Ferrers on the estuary of the River Yealm has two good pubs and a post office. It is a community of incomers and everyone gets along extremely well.’ As in all the South Hams district, second homeowners pay double council tax.
