A Labour MP who has campaigned for some years against short let landlords says proposals to crack down on the sector “do not go nearly far enough.”
This week Housing Secretary Michael Gove announced that councils will be given greater power to control future short-term lets by making them subject to planning consent.
Meanwhile, a new mandatory national register will give local authorities the information they need about short-term lets in their area, and the government suggests this “will help councils understand the extent of short-term lets in their area, the effects on their communities, and underpin compliance with key health and safety regulations.”
Existing homeowners will effectively get retrospective planning consent and will still be able to let out their own main or sole home without planning consent but only for up to 90 nights throughout a year.
But York’s Labour MP, Rachael Maclean, has slammed the proposals.
She is quoted on the York Mix website as saying: “The changes … will not bring any of the hundreds of thousands of lost homes back, instead the new rules will reinforce their holiday-let status by automatically granting them retrospective planning permission. In many areas, this means the horse has well and truly bolted, and the government confirmed it plans to do absolutely nothing to get it back.”
She continues: “Owners are actually being given the automatic right to flip homes to holiday lets without seeking permission, unless local authorities have actually managed to introduce restrictions – which itself could be a long, costly and uncertain process.
“This is completely out of step with where people are on this issue.
“There is also now a huge risk that, in hotspots like York, there will now be a flurry of new holiday lets, as investors scramble to snap up remaining properties before controls come into force.”
Maclean says the 90 day rule “will do little to address the housing crisis in places like York where over 2,000 properties are short term holiday lets, when we’ve got hundreds and hundreds of families on our housing waiting list and local workers increasingly finding themselves priced out of the city.
“It is clear that this government are out of ideas and of touch with the impact they are having on people living in places like York.”
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Don’t worry, Rachel. Landlords are selling in anticipation of what your party will do to the PRS. YOUR “hundreds of thousands” 😂 can buy them. Are there really hundreds of thousands of holiday lets or is that just more Labour exaggeration. 🤔
Very good points made by Jacob Rees-Mogg on GB News yesterday. It was entitled
'The Renters Reform Bill won't help the housing shortage,'
Unfortunately, Ellie, it will not make one jot of difference. The faux-Tory party have made their mind up and are convinced tenants will vote for them because of this. They are delusional.
They are now trying to woo country voters because of Labour's plans on drag and trail hunting, rewilding etc. It appears their slogan for the election will be, "Vote for us - Labour will be worse".
If you want change, CHANGE YOUR VOTE.
If one includes caravans, mobile homes and chalets as well as traditionally constructed houses and flats, there are MILLIONS of properties used by TENS of millions of UK citizens for UK holidays of various lengths.
Since they could all provide welcome respite accommodation for the homeless, why does Rachel not want to confiscate them all or penalise all their owners?
Could the clue be the fact that tens of millions of voters could be adversely affected?
Why risk voter fury to solve the homeless problem fully when you can make a tiny dent in it by infuriating those who will probably never vote for you, whilst cheering up your own voters who lack the work ethic and gumption to be able to afford their own holiday retreat?
Incidentally it looks as if the crux of her complaint is owners having the right to decide exactly who occupies their own property and for how long! She clearly wants us to be forced to seek permission from our superiors!
I thought Labour would oppose serfdom and feudalism?
The simplest way to bring short lets back into the long term market is to abolish Section 24 and strengthen eviction rights for landlords.
Landlords need 2 things:
1. Profit
2. Good tenants
The current housing crisis is largely down to over taxation and forcing landlords to retain bad tenants long after a functional eviction system would have got them out.
If long term lets were financially viable how many landlords would bother with the hassle of holiday lets? Constantly making sure every item of furniture is in top condition and worrying one bad review will destroy their business?
Summed up nicely Jo. 👍
Very well put.
Apart from the obvious mistake in the article, (Rachel Maclean is a Tory MP from Redditch, it's Rachel Maskell in York), it's typical of short sighted, interfering socialists to think this way!
The fact is that York's tourist industry relies upon the very number of airbnb, hotels, etc. and trying to reduce them to house people is actually detrimental to the income of the town!! If anything airbnbs are better than homes because they provide jobs for people to have money to buy homes!
There is undoubtedly a shortage of homes, affordable homes which Rachel and her socialist colleagues have failed to address, and it's nothing more than a distraction than to whine out airbnb!
She needs a good dollop of reality!
None of this really matters.
When net immigration is 75000 extra people a year, plus the people entering are mainly of child bearing age (meaning a disproportionate amount of the population having children) nothing any government will do will ever fix the problem.
Its far easier to speak about short term let’s or renters reform bill than actually speak about the real problem - too many people
I would welcome a few million working immigrants if we could ship out a few million workshy benefit claimants and rent dodgers.
They could choose between Alaska or Antarctica if they don't like it hot or Africa or Amazon if they don't like it cold.
The parable of the Sun and the Wind comes to mind.
Who manages to get the man to take off the coat?
The wind who batters the man and tries to rip the coat away or the sun who encourages with gentle heat.
Both Tories and Labour are speaking words of batter. Rather than looking at the reasons why Landlords have moved from PRS to short term let, they just want to hit harder to make people reverse their actions. It's not difficult, sort out the causes to resolve the issue, hitting landlords harder wont work.
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