Newspaper column 19th February 2024 - Michael Gove's visit to St Agnus and reformed planning for short-term lets.

Last week saw another really positive development in my campaign towards addressing the impact of holiday lets on communities in Truro and Falmouth, when the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Communities and Local Government, Michael Gove, visited St Agnes to announce a major new Government policy.

One of the biggest issues that I am often contacted about locally is the lack of affordable accommodation for local people, particularly in our rural and coastal communities.

This was really brought home to me following the pandemic when in one of my first constituency advice surgeries since restrictions lifted, held in St Agnes, within two hours, I had had 15 constituents and families through the doors, and every single one was either being evicted or their rent was going up so much that they could not stay. Pretty much all those properties were going to be flipped into Airbnbs.

Since then, along with Cornish MP colleagues, we have been lobbying the Government to make changes in this area to ensure that we do not let this continue to happen.

A lot of these changes to better restrict the holiday let industry and correct the imbalance of these properties towards those occupied by local people all year round have been made possible through the Government’s landmark Levelling Up Act, which came into law last year.

The Levelling Up Act has already given local authorities like Cornwall Council the power to double council tax on existing second homes, something I know that Cornwall Council have welcomed and will be bringing into practice from April 2025, the earliest that they are able to.

But the Government has gone further and last year consulted on giving additional powers to local authorities via the Levelling Up Act to hold mandatory registers of all holiday lets, and also to allow local authorities to make people who want to turn existing residential properties into holiday lets to have to do so via making a planning application for change of use, therefore giving the local authority the ultimate decision as to whether to allow holiday lets into communities or not. These powers will give local authorities the tools to be able to see the scope of the problem and identify where there are large numbers of holiday lets overwhelming communities, and then give them the power to do something about it, by giving them a say via a planning application.

I very much welcomed the consultation by the Government last year, and was delighted to see Michael Gove, speaking to myself and residents of St Agnes last week, commit the Government to adopting these proposals in full. This will give local authorities like Cornwall Council more powers to do something about holiday lets in communities that are adversely affected by them, and in doing so, will also encourage landlords to keep their properties in the open market, and sell or rent to local people who will occupy them all year round. A really good step forward, and I will continue to work to get the best deal for Truro and Falmouth, and Cornwall, now and in the future.

As always, I am fully focused on the job at hand and if there is ever anything at all I can do to help, then please do not hesitate to contact me. Please get in touch with me by email at Cherilyn.mackrory.mp@parliament.uk , or by telephone on 01872 229698. My regular constituency advice surgeries are held in a covid-safe environment at my office, so please do get in touch should you wish to meet me about any matters that I can be of assistance with.