Wales is not for sale

North Wales is very beautiful. But not very fertile, and therefore not very densely populated. As a result, it gets a fair amount of its income through tourism. But with tourism come issues. And one of these is that a lot of houses end up being either second houses or holiday lets. It's not as bad as it is in places like St Ives in Cornwall, but it is quite a hot topic in the area. Here in Bethesda, the problem isn't that bad, because it has never been a tourist hotspot. It has traditionally been a quarry village. Places like Betws-Y-Coed and Llanberis have been touristic since the Victorian age; Betws had a railway station and attracted people who would come down to hunt, and Llanberis had the Snowdon railway. So basically, people have been going there for ages, and therefore there is money in the village, and there are cafes and restaurants, and therefore people keep coming, et cetera. Bethesda doesn't have that, as quarry workers can’t afford spending money in cafés and restaurants. And impoverished ex-quarryman even less so. 

There have been discussions about what to do with places like Betws where very few people live full time. A lot of it is holiday accommodation, and that is mainly full in summer. One path taken was to increase council tax: you pay three times as much for a second home than for a normal home. But if you can afford an entire second home, do you really care about this? It does increase the income of the council, though. And that money could be put to good use.

One morning, a message from Gwynedd Council fell on the doormat. And it was clear that more measures had been taken. The letter informed me that you now need planning permission for turning a residential dwelling into either a second home or holiday accommodation. That didn't used to be the case. I think it is a good idea! This way, councils can control how much of their housing stock they are willing to sacrifice to tourism. From now on, that is. The letter was quite explicit that if you have already turned your house into a second home or a holiday let, that's okay and the law change doesn't affect you. So the very touristic villages will remain quite empty most of the year for the foreseeable future. But I suppose sometimes holiday lets are taken back into full-time residential use; if you look on the real estate websites, you regularly see properties advertised that have been holiday lets. So if they can make their way back to full residential use, but only can move in the other direction with permission of the authorities, in the long run it should be possible to create a reasonable balance. I think it's a good thing!

I have no intention of turning my house into anything other than my house, so it doesn't directly affect me, but I do hope this measure works. I suppose time will tell!