Short-term Holiday Lets: Planning

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Foster]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight that. A range of factors go into the pressures that push some landlords from long-term residential lets to short-term holiday lets. Factors include the system of taxation and whatever wider regulation is in place for landlords. We might also consider what incentives we can provide for people to build to rent. If a company builds a property specifically to rent it as a home, they are likely to offer longer-term tenancies and the landlord is highly unlikely to want to move back into the property, which is one reason why a residential tenancy might come to an end. My hon. Friend is right to highlight that the issue is part of a wider debate about how we ensure there is an adequate supply of housing in our constituencies so that organisations such as the NHS can recruit staff. We have reflected on that issue before. If people cannot find somewhere to live in the local area, clearly they will not take up jobs in that area. That goes to the heart of the debate.

To expand my argument I should define what I mean by a short-term holiday let. The term “short-term letting” is most commonly used to refer to the offering of residential accommodation to paying guests. It can include single rooms within a shared premises or the letting of an entire premises such as a house or flat. Short-term lettings are distinct from private residential tenancies because they do not require the occupier to treat the property or part of it as their principal home. They are also distinct from other forms of guest accommodation such as hotels or hostels as the lettings are in premises that could or would otherwise be used as a permanent residence—in essence, a home.

There is evidence that the number of short-term lettings in England has increased significantly in recent years, particularly because of the development and growth of the sharing economy and peer-to-peer accommodation services such as Airbnb. Those online platforms essentially provide marketplaces that connect people who want to rent out their properties or spare rooms with people seeking short-term accommodation.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for making those points and for giving way. He will be aware that platforms such as Airbnb have been calling for a register of short-term lets for a long time. Does he agree that a register is precisely what the industry wants because that would allow it effectively to nick properties from other platforms? However, what communities need is their local planning authorities to have the powers to decide on the number of short-term lets and whether to renew licences when there has been antisocial behaviour.

[Kevin Foster]

First, I would gently point out that the debate is focusing on the planning system and giving local councils the ability to prevent overconcentration in particular areas, as well as having an eye to the wider housing situation when deciding whether a property should be converted.

On the allied issue of putting a registration system in place, my own tourism industry would like to see that, and having a register of properties being used for this purpose would make it easier to do certain compliance checks. If people were in breach of lease obligations, whereby they might not be allowed to sub-let a property by the freeholder, that would be highlighted.

A register needs to be seen as part of a range of measures, but it is worth noting that a wider regulatory system would be introduced once there was a register of such properties. Today, however, the focus is clearly on the planning system and how we could empower local authorities on behalf of their local communities to shape the housing market in this area to ensure that we do not see streets that should be providing residential homes becoming holiday parks.

Owing to the issues with registration, or the lack of registration, it is hard to get exact numbers for the properties involved. However, I note the report by Alma Economics commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to analyse the results of its recent consultation on developing a tourist accommodation registration scheme in England. The report concludes that although there is no single source of data on short-term lets in England “one plausible estimate” is 257,000 properties in 2022.

Another piece of analysis, which was undertaken by the charity CPRE—the Campaign to Protect Rural England—looked at property data collected by AirDNA on Airbnb and similar platforms, and estimated that 148,000 properties in England were being used for short-term lettings in September 2021. That analysis points to what makes this a core issue for those of us lucky enough to represent beautiful parts of our United Kingdom such as Torbay, where tourism is one of the main drivers of our economy owing to its concentration in the area.

Further analysis from CPRE confirms that some areas have seen a dramatic increase in short-term lettings in recent years. For example, in Cornwall, short-term listings increased by 661% in the five years to September 2021. While Airbnb is one of several providers of listings of short-term lets, it is the best known company operating in this area and is generally held to be leading the market, with its name becoming synonymous with such activity.