LOCAL people in rural and tourist areas are being deprived of a place to live as demand for second homes and short-term holiday lets drives up property prices.

That is the view of more than 5,000 people who signed a petition calling on the Welsh Government to intervene and change planning rules to "ensure community control of the housing market".

They believe the rising numbers of second homes and holiday lets in rural and tourist areas were "reducing the available housing stock and increasing house prices" for locals, Senedd petitions committee chair Janet Finch-Saunders told the Welsh Parliament today.

Research published this month found there were an estimated 24,423 second homes in Wales. In Gwynedd, Pembrokeshire and Anglesey, roughly one in 10 properties is a second home or holiday let.

Ms Finch-Saunders said a recent nationwide move towards home-working, coupled with the growing popularity of accommodation-rental websites, had "exacerbated" the issue, according to the petitioners.

They feared the "knock-on impacts" on the sustainability of schools, public services and the Welsh language, she added.

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The Welsh Government has granted councils powers to levy council tax premiums on second homes. The Senedd was told the petitioners welcomed this move but wanted such taxation to be higher.

In January, housing minister Julie James said the government was "acutely aware of growing concern" that second homes were impacting communities and access to housing.

She said Wales was looking at how successfully the issue had been tackled in Scotland. The government's "commitment was clear" but resolving the matter would stretch beyond the current Senedd term, the minister added.

But in the Senedd today, Delyth Jewell said the problem had been "left too long untackled".

"A situation where 67,000 people are on housing waiting lists while others can afford a number of homes is not right," she added, before saying planning consent should be "a requirement" before turning a property into a second home.

There were concerns, too, the current legislation was vulnerable to exploitation.

Rhun ap Iorwerth called for the closing of a "loophole" that allowed second home owners to register their homes as businesses "and in so doing avoid paying council tax, and through the business rate relief system, avoid paying anything at all".

Mark Reckless suggested second-home owners weren't always responsible for driving up house prices, and in some cases took advantage of the fact many local people had chosen to leave those rural and tourist areas for better job prospects.

He said there were "some localised areas" where local people were "priced out" of property by second-home owners, but "actually, it's the dearth of employment opportunities that, in many cases, lead people to leave".

Welsh language minister Eluned Morgan said she was "highly aware of the strong feelings" around second-homes in some parts of Wales.

She said "there was no one solution" to a "complex" issue that covered tourism, the economy, planning and the sustainability of communities – particularly in Welsh-speaking strongholds.

As well as the move to increase Land Transaction Tax, Ms Morgan said the government wanted all councils to "make sure they deliver" on responsibilities to respond to local housing needs.

The government was "acutely aware" of calls to change the planning system and increase regulation, the minister added, but because there was "no clear definition of what a second-home is" it could make enforcement difficult.

One solution to curbing the rise in holiday lets, Ms Morgan said, could be to encourage councils or community groups to buy up holiday homes in "sensitive areas", which they could then rent out to tourists "and plough the money back into those communities".

This article originally appeared on the Argus' sister site The National.