Coastal Communities

Debate between Steff Aquarone and Polly Billington

Thursday 20th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steff Aquarone]

I make absolutely no comment on the latter question, but I welcome the hon. Member’s contribution—no advance sight was given of my speech. Her presence here serves to remind us all that it is not just MPs representing coastal communities who have a stake in their prosperity. I thank her for her almost perfectly timed words.

In more recent times we had the 2024 pier of the year in Cromer. The excellent North Cottage in Cromer, run by Andrea and Jerry, was recently awarded self-catering accommodation of the year at the Suffolk and Norfolk tourism awards. Cromer also plays host to a Banksy artwork from his 2021 tour of the east coast. The artwork, of a queue of hermit crabs looking on at empty shells, highlights one of our greatest challenges in coastal communities: second homes and the wider housing crisis.

In North Norfolk we have been plagued by huge numbers of second homes and empty homes. Outside the City of London, we have the highest number of empty or infrequently used homes in all of England. These properties are carving the core out of many small and historical communities, and in too many cases contribute very little back. Our poorest are sitting on ever growing waiting lists, while the rich treat our coastal villages as a setting for a Jane Austen-era summer jaunt, leaving them to suffer for the rest of the year.

In Wells-next-the-Sea, 40% of the town is second homes and holiday lets. In some parts, only one in 10 homes is someone’s main residence. I am delighted that, after years of lobbying, we are able to levy a 100% council tax increase on those second homes. That will bring in £1.7 million for the district council, allowing it to support more affordable housing and provide homelessness services.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

Jane Austen mentions not only Cromer but Ramsgate—in “Pride and Prejudice”—although certainly in a less salubrious way than she may have referred to Cromer. Ramsgate and Wells-next-the-Sea share the concerns that the hon. Member mentioned about short-term holiday lets. Does he support the calls that many colleagues and I have made for not just a registration scheme but a licensing scheme for short-term holiday lets, in order for local authorities to be able to control and shape their own local economies?

[Steff Aquarone]

It is not ideological; we must be pragmatic in these things. The right sort of holiday lets can bring in welcome tourism to North Norfolk, but there is a safety issue regarding regulation, which I am very sympathetic to. I would be very interested in talking in more detail about our shared interest in this matter at another time.