LOCAL people with houses in some of Britain’s favourite beauty spots might have to obtain planning permission if they want to sell them to second-home buyers.

The plans being considered by ministers aim to curtail the number of properties being sold to holidaymakers and encourage a steady supply for local people.

Those already with second homes will be exempt from the proposed rule changes and will not need permission to sell to other second-home buyers.

The change would be applied in “honeypot” villages where second-home ownership is 40-50 per cent and the communities turn into ghost towns during the winter.

Rock, in north Cornwall, and Troutbeck in the Lake District are among the areas where young people and local families are priced out of the property market. House prices in these areas are ten times more than average local income.

The plan emerged yesterday as the centrepiece of a report from the Affordable Rural Housing Commission, chaired by Elinor Goodman.

Second-home owners also face extra taxes to help to pay for social housing and public services, a move revealed exclusively in The Times this month.

The precise mechanism for calculating the tax has been left to Sir Michael Lyons as part of his review into finding new ways for local authorities to raise cash. One option is a form of absenteeism tax on the length of time a house is unoccupied and a household is failing to contribute to the local economy.

The Government is also urged to find a new method of identifying second homes. According to data supplied to the commission by local authorities there are fewer than 100,000 second homes in England, yet consumer surveys suggest that there are nearly 300,000.

The commission believes that the self-certification process for income tax is a possible way of compiling a national list, and even suggests a fine for anyone supplying false information. The report is being studied by Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, and David Miliband, the Rural Affairs Secretary. It states that the number of social houses and flats must treble in rural areas each year, the equivalent of 11,000 new homes.

Ms Goodman, who owns a second home in Central London, insisted that second homes across the country were not a problem but had become an issue in popular resorts in places such as Cornwall and the Lake District.

She said: “Having houses empty for long periods undermines the sustainability of those communities. People are not sending their children to the local schools and not using the local medical practice. So it makes it more likely those services will disappear. There should be some way of raising money which can be ploughed back into the community.”

Caroline Spelman, the Shadow Communities and Local Government spokeswoman, said: “Labour is turning council tax into a crude wealth tax and punishing those who have saved and worked hard.”

Moves to restrict new house purchases to local people are already to be introduced in parts of the Highlands. Similar restrictions have been introduced in the Brecon Beacons, Dartmoor, Snowdonia, Exmoor, the North Yorkshire Moors, the Yorkshire Dales and the Peak District. The average cost of a rural home is now more than £200,000, 19 per cent more than an urban property.

ENGLAND'S SECOND HOME HOT SPOTS

City of London 27.2%*

Isles of Scilly 21.5%

South Hams, Devon 10.9%

North Norfolk 10.0%

North Cornwall 9.9%

Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland 9.5%

Westminster 9.1%

Kensington & Chelsea 8.7%

Penwith, Cornwall 8.6%

South Lakeland, Cumbria 7.6%

*Percentage of homes

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