The Yorkshire Dales authority is cracking down on second home ownership with a ‘radical’ proposal to increase council tax 500% for these properties.
Members of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) voted 12 to nine in favour of the council tax hike pilot scheme.
The aim is to bring existing houses into full time occupancy and to ensure second-home owners are making a similar socio-economic contribution to the area as permanent residents.
The scheme is part of the authority’s wider push to ‘halt and then reverse’ the decline in the number of young people in the park.
Members voted 20 to two in favour of a proposal to work alongside constituent local councils to reach an agreement on a joint programme of activity to attract more families and people of working age to move to the National Park.
‘With our partners in other local authorities, we hope to be able to make speedy progress on the development of a co-ordinated programme of activity to attract more families to move to the Park,’ said YDNPA chairman Carl Lis.
‘That means building the right sort of housing, creating new jobs, and putting in place the right sort of infrastructure. As part of that, we will also be working hard to develop a more detailed proposition on second homes that we can put to government at the earliest opportunity.’
