According to Generation Rent, which collated council tax data from Department for Levelling Up and figures on commercial holiday lets from Valuation Office Agency, found the number of second homes had risen by 3,556 to 256,913 between 2021 and 2022.
The number of holiday lets during that same period has increased by 7,153 to 73,264.
This is the equivalent of around 10,709 homes, according to Generation Rent.
Generation Rent said that this continues a trend of homes leaving the residential sector, noting that during 2020 and 2021 holiday lets rose by 7,102 and 807 more second homes.
Overall, between 2019 and 2022 the number of holiday lets and second homes has increased by 25,217. The campaign group said that this led to greater competition for remaining property and further pressure on house prices and rents.
It added that in some areas this had resulted in a loss of over two per cent of housing stock between 2019 and 2022.
The nationwide effect
Leicester was the most impacted, mostly due to second homes, with a 2.2 per cent decline in the city’s 2020 housing stock.
This was followed by Scarborough, South Hams in Devon, the London Borough of Southwark and Copeland in Cumbria, which all saw more than one per cent of housing stock move into the second homes and holiday lets sector in the space of three years.
Recent reports have suggested that the government is considering mandating that holiday lets need to have planning permission.
Generation Rent noted that a similar policy was in force in London, where homes let on a short-term basis of over 90 days in a given year need planning permission. However, it said that this was not well-enforced with 15 per cent of Airbnb listings in London available for longer than 90 days.
Generation Rent said that Rachael Maskell was “taking a different” approach, and was bringing a bill to the Commons that would give local authorities the power to require holiday let operators to obtain a licence in order to let a property to tourists.
Dan Wilson Craw, deputy director of Generation Rent, said: “High nightly rents and the lack of tax and regulation have fuelled an explosion in holiday lets at the expense of people who just need a place to live. In many parts of the country that is forcing people to move away from the places they grew up, and leading to shortages of workers.
“The government is beginning to recognise the need to intervene. However, it is not clear that planning changes are the answer given their limited impact in London. The permanent nature of planning permission would also make properties designated as holiday lets disproportionately more valuable than other properties.”
He added: “Instead, councils should have the power to require holiday lets to have a time-limited licence, and cap their number where there is a severe shortage of homes. This would be a more flexible and responsive approach than using the planning system, and would be easier for councils to enforce.”
