There are around 100,000 second-home owners in Scotland, and I now find myself among them. We do not get a great press. Second-home owners are often castigated for damaging the local economy and driving young people out of the housing market in rural areas. Some critics consider all holiday homes a social evil. During the current government consultation on the issue, one politician suggested that the council tax be doubled on every such property to end the trend.

I have some sympathy with such arguments. But it’s not fair to suggest that every second home is bad. We bought our holiday cottage just outside Leven in Fife 18 months ago, so we are fairly new to the second-home market. We are also unusual in that we already live in a rural area — Stirlingshire. It is a fantastic part of the world, but everything we do relating to our business and family happens there. Sometimes it is nice to escape.

We looked around for quite some time before we found our cottage, which is a little slice of heaven. It’s quite proper that we have to pay 90% council tax on the property. I believe that if you live somewhere, you should make a contribution.

But the financial and social contribution goes beyond simply paying for local council services. It would be unusual for our family not to be in Fife at the weekend. In fact, we spent the whole summer there this year. That’s very different from the stereotype of the holiday-home owners who pop up three times a year. Sadly, that stereotype does exist. Elie, the lovely coastal village which is also in Fife, has more second homes than residents. This really changes the whole vibe of the place. It is like a ghost town in winter.

When we were looking for a place, we were determined not to exacerbate that sort of trend. Stirlingshire also has a lot of second homes so we are sensitive to their impact. So we chose a town in Fife where that wasn’t an issue. We wanted the place to be accessible so that we can use it all the time. And that means that we are probably as integrated into the Fife community as we are integrated into the community in Stirlingshire.

We shop locally, we eat out locally, we go to the Scottish Deer Centre, we visit a lot of the local amenities with the children. That all means we spend money. And because we spend a lot of time there, we have a local gardener who helps us. Somebody from the village also helps us in the house. When we go out for dinner, we get somebody local to come and babysit. All of that contributes to the Leven economy.

We have eaten out more often in Fife during the past 18 months than we have anywhere else. All the decent restaurants have been visited, some of them several times. We also patronise all the farm shops to buy local produce, and the seafood shops where we buy our fish. One of the great things about being there is that you can eat the Fife diet — that’s a movement of people who eat only what is made nearby. It all contributes to the local economy.

Our place is a holiday cottage, so I would not imagine that it would ever be used for any other purpose, it just lends itself to being a holiday home. It sits in an idyllic setting, on the edge of a fairly urbanised village, so it is probably at the upper end of the house price range in Leven. That means it is unlikely to be sold to someone from the village. We do not feel as though we are keeping a young family out of a home. We have received a really good reception from the community — certainly never any snide comments.

Holiday-home owners are often categorised in the same bracket as buy-to-let owners. However, buy-to-let is a financial investment, whereas owning a holiday cottage is more of an emotional investment. Fife has certainly become a much more integrated part of our life. It’s the place that we spend our quality time. When we are at home, it is all very rushed: business, school, everything happening at once. The time we spend in Fife, by contrast, is relaxed and laid back. It’s when we go out, when we go to the beach, go out for lunch and dinner. In fact, Fife probably gets the best of our life, the best of our free time.

We did consider buying abroad. The hassle put us off — all that travelling. We have a number of friends who own second homes abroad and they don’t use them very often. If we didn’t have the cottage, we would probably travel more. We have a lot of family and friends down south, so we’d head for London, Brighton or Bath. Now, because the cottage is a big, sociable place, a lot of friends and family come to us from the south of England. They have been introduced to an area that they would not have seen otherwise. In fact, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law are coming back to Fife with their family for a holiday because they fell in love with the place — just as we did.

Nick Nairn is a well-known chef and television presenter who runs his own cook school in Stirlingshire.

www.nicknairncookschool.com

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