Radical thinking needed to address second homes issue

Devon will need to go further in tackling its housing challenges to make sure communities thrive, possibly even adopting radical policies to ban second homes.

That’s according to the chair of the Devon Housing Task Force, Cllr Mandy Ewings.

She leads a cross-party group of councillors across Devon’s 11 local authorities on the task force, set up in 2022 in response to the county’s housing crisis. Cllr Ewigns said problems are vast, not least with 11,000 second homes in the county, the rising number of empty homes and not enough affordable homes being built.

She hopes a new report by the Devon Housing Commission, due to be published in July, will trigger improvements.

The commission, set up by the task force, is made up of experts, parliamentarians, councillors and academics from the University of Exeter. It has been tasked with making a strong case to present to the government on how to approach the many housing issues, including homelessness.

The commission is lobbying the government for measures to control the growth of short-term lettings because it is claimed they lead to a shortage of homes for local people.

The commission believes switching from long-term to short-term lets is a key reason for the fall of 50 per cent in private lettings across the county, and by as much as 67 per cent in North Devon alone between 2019 and 2021.