The number of holiday lets in Keswick has reached “dangerous levels” – national park chiefs have been told in a scorching address from the town’s Tony Lywood.
The Keswick-based national park member fired a series of barbed remarks at the authority as its members and officers sat in Kendal for its last full meeting of 2021.
Mr Lywood, who represents Keswick on the county council, suggested the LDNPA – which has approved a number of applications to change B&Bs and guesthouses into holiday lets, or dwellings, had stood quietly on the sidelines.
But he called on officials to play a greater role in convincing Cumbrian MPs, local councils, senior government ministers, and the National Parks of England, to take action to stop the loss of local homes to tourism.
He said that if the park “stood for anything,” it could and should “stand up” for the local people of Keswick, which he said was not an “quaint population of indigenous peoples” left to die out.
Cllr Lywood outlined five “simple and practical” steps the LDNPA should take to get the issue further up the agenda locally and nationally.
He has previously blamed a reluctance by Whitehall to intervene in the holiday let proliferation in rural areas as being down to the amount of second homes and holiday lets owned nationwide by Conservative MPs or their voters.
Cllr Lywood told the meeting: “We need the LDNP to step up and shout loudly on this is.”
Although quiet meetings, corridor conversations or whispers in someone’s ear all have their place, we now need a very clear way forward.”
He has called for holiday lets to be taxed the same as residential dwellings and brought onto the council tax system.
“I live very near to two holiday lets. I pay in excess of £2,500 per year in council tax. My neighbours pay nothing, not a sausage, zero. Why? Because they are holiday lets and there is a loophole in the payment of rates on such houses.”
“Once a dwelling becomes a holiday let it changes its status into a business and should pay business rates.
”This is quite reasonable. However, when they do this they automatically get a ‘small business rate relief’ which takes the business rates to zero unless it’s a mansion with a hugely high rateable value. This system was designed for small start ups and small shops not what is effectively an investment rather than a business.”
“We are giving tax breaks and effective subsidy to holiday lets which is plainly ridiculous as we are actually encouraging the destruction of our own communities and worse since every dwelling gets the same benefits as we do without paying a penny towards it.
The LDNP partnership plan commits the Lake District National Park to lobbying/influence/petition/persuade for the abolition of the ‘small business rate relief’ for furnished holiday lets which is incredibly unpopular and galling among those of us who have to pay council tax.
We need the LDNP to step up and shout loudly on this is. Although quiet meetings, corridor conversations or whispers in someone’s ear all have their place, we now need a very clear way forward.
He said:
May I humbly suggest that this authority makes five very simple and practical steps to try to persuade the Government to close this loophole:
- Write to the six Cumbrian MPs and ask them to support and push for the removal of furnished holiday lets from the ‘small business rate relief’ system.
- To petition and persuade National Parks England to support the removal of the furnished holiday lets from the ‘small business rate relief’ system and ask the government so to do.
- To ask the Cumbria County Council and all district and parish councils to support the idea of removal of furnished holiday lets from the ‘small business rate relief’ system.
- To write to the minister of local government and ask to remove of furnished holiday lets from the ‘small business rate relief’ system.
- To write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to remove of furnished holiday lets from the ‘small business rate relief’ system.
The people who live in the Lake District National Park are not an add on like some quaint population of indigenous peoples that may quietly die out.
If the LDNP stands for anything, it can and should stand up for the local population on this issue.
