King’s Lynn and West Norfolk borough council would ban the building of weekend retreats in any village in the AONB where the percentage of second homes exceeds 25%: spots such as Thornham, Brancaster and Burnham Market. Outside the AONB, the ceiling would be 30%, with development strictly limited to local needs.

Most of the 12,000 new homes to be built by 2021 would be in urban extensions to King’s Lynn, a limited amount in Downham Market and Hunstanton and the rest in “service centres”, including Heacham and Dersingham.

Such changes cannot come soon enough for Elaine Maslin, 26, a journalist at the Cromer office of the Eastern Daily Press. “I would love to buy a house, which would mean I could start paying off a mortgage rather than having it hanging over my head into retirement, but house prices and wages just don’t match up,” she says.

On £19,600 a year, she pays £275 a month rent in a shared house in Cromer. Renting a one-bed flat would cost £500 a month, giving her little hope of raising a deposit for a basic two-bed house there; they cost about £125,000. Her boyfriend, Sam Parker, 25, a reporter in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, earns £17,500 a year. “Even if we put our incomes together, it would still be very hard to buy,” Maslin says. “There is the shared ownership scheme but it seems very complicated, and I think it would be better just to hold on for a mortgage.”

Estate agents broadly agree about the need to provide affordable homes and welcome the degree of certainty offered by naming future development areas. Restricting second-home ownership is another matter. “It could create a two-tier market, one for restricted areas and one for areas in which development is encouraged,” says Wagstaff. “But the vogue seems to be for period properties, and these proposals are unlikely to affect that area of the market.”

Demand is still driven by would-be second-homers and retirees, and Burnham Market is known as Chelsea-on-Sea. “The main draw is sailing and bird watching, but you do get people wanting to live up here because they feel it’s the place to be and they can see all their London friends,” says Gareth Thomas, country houses manager at Abbotts Countrywide, Burnham Market.

Kevin Sisman, a partner at Belton Duffey estate agency in Wells-next-the-Sea, is witnessing a scramble for a two-bed cottage between a would-be second-homer and a local. “We are waiting to see the outcome but we find that some residents will take a lower offer from a local rather than see their home go as a weekend retreat,” he says.

Local people might just be starting to get their own back.

ON THE MARKET

A five-bed house in Burnham Market, with views out to the sea, is a mile from the coast. The property has planning permission to raise the roofline for better views. It is for sale for £1.2m with Bedfords, 01328 730 500, www.bedfords.co.uk

Set in extensive organic gardens in the middle of open country near Kettlestone, three miles from Fakenham, a three-bedroom cottage is for sale for £385,000 with Belton Duffey, 01328 710 666, www.beltonduffey.co.uk

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