Affordable Housing (Devon and Cornwall)

Geoffrey Cox Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the availability of affordable housing in Devon and Cornwall.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I hate the word “crisis”, but there is no doubt in my mind that we have a housing crisis across Devon and Cornwall, which is particularly acute in my constituency of North Devon. It means that there is virtually no housing available for local people, affordable or otherwise. This weekend, the Chamber engagement team secured over 200 responses, the strength of feeling is so high. It is my constituents’ experience of this issue that drove me to apply for today’s debate.

Carol, one of my constituents, says:

“For me personally I am a single woman two years off retirement, I will not be able to retire completely because private rents are too high for one person on a pension. I am at risk of being homeless because of this. I’m not eligible for help if I lose my house because I cannot afford to live here anymore.”

Rachel says:

“We’ve been given notice to move out after 10 years so our landlord can use the house for family holidays. But we cannot find another family home in Braunton—there’s simply nothing available, likely due to the increased number of holiday lets.”

Kathryn says:

“We were saving to buy a house 3 years ago, unfortunately having reached our savings target 18 months ago, we have been unable to buy due to the huge increase in house prices in North Devon during the last 2 years. We now require more than double our original savings target for a deposit so are stuck renting until something changes.”

Stephanie says:

“Despite working, two of our children who live in Devon with children of their own are now suffering poverty due to high and increasing rent and no possible chance of either social housing or owning a home. They are likely to need deposits of approximately £150,000 as their wages would only cover a mortgage to approximately £90,000. It’s no good claiming there are schemes where only 5% deposit is needed when house prices far exceed earnings.”

So what exactly is going on? Figures from the Land Registry show that house prices in North Devon have risen by 22.5% against a UK average of 8%, the second highest increase in England, with neighbouring Torridge coming in fifth at 19.9%. At the same time, we have seen a complete collapse of the private rental sector as landlords take advantage of the surge in domestic tourism during the pandemic. Currently, Barnstaple, with a population of over 35,000, has just three private rentals available on Rightmove and 234 holiday lets on Airbnb.

[Sir Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the situation at the moment allows landlords to buy up good residences in towns such as Barnstaple and Bideford, register themselves as businesses, apply for small business interest rate relief, pay nothing to the community, either in council tax or business rates, and provide very little by way of employment, and that that racket has to be stopped?

[Selaine Saxby]

As always, my right hon. and learned Friend and neighbour makes an excellent point. There is so much that needs to be done in Devon and Cornwall.

Building on the point I was making about the availability of property, today Ilfracombe has just one private rental and over 300 holiday lets. Apparently there has been a 67% reduction in rented housing between 2019 and August 2021, making North Devon the worst affected area in the south-west and the fourth worst nationally. Despite an improvement in the management of the list, the council reports a 32% increase in applications, with local affordable housing providers advising that there has been an increase of four to five times in the number of applicants for each new affordable rental property. From the data available, our district council reports that we have lost 467 houses from the permanent occupied market to second homes and short-term holiday lets, at a time when the rate of new developments has dropped right off due to the pandemic.