Why the UK should build thousands more holiday homes
Pristine cliffs, empty lakesides, long beaches... why not cover them in seasonal cabins?
A few days ago the LSE produced a blog on the horrors of the UK housing market[1]. The authors offered a couple of solutions – solutions they reckon could sort things out with no need to bother building any more houses. Most were oddly authoritarian. People with more bedrooms than they need should suffer “local interventions” until they give up and downsize (to where you might ask… ). People living alone and the “damaging cultural attitudes” that makes it feel like living alone is ok should be “challenged” presumably until they give up and move into some kind of co living environment “to the betterment of both environmental and well being objectives.” Vacant and “non decent” rental homes should be taken into state ownership and all new builds should be for social rental only. You get the general idea. But the one thing that caught my eye in particular among all this dictatorial idiocy (I’d go for thinking more about population growth, relaxing planning and building myself….) was the suggestion that “outright bans of harmful activities such as second home ownership should also be considered.” The governing class in the UK have a bizarre loathing of holiday homes. This makes no sense at all – anyone who can remember the economic miseries of the likes of Cornwall before the great second home/domestic holiday boom will know instincitively that the tourism and spending that second homes can bring is more a financial lifesaver than a problem. Does it price locals out of the housing market? It does. And that’s a problem. Luckily is also comes with a very simple solution. Build more holiday houses, tens of thousands more – and then make a distinction between those that can be occupied full time and those that are for the summer only. Think Scandi. My latest column for Bloomberg (which will irritate almost everyone) here.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-04-19/uk-second-homes-should-be-priority-for-next-government?srnd=undefined
[1] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/solving-the-housing-crisis-without-building-new-houses/