The uncontrolled surge of holiday lets in areas such as Ullswater looks set to come under more scrutiny — but whether this is too little, too late remains open to debate.
Richard Leafe, the outgoing chief executive of planning body the Lake District National Park Authority, will tell members at a meeting about a swathe of changes and planning powers on the way.
After months of consultation, the Government has opted to introduce a “mandatory national registration scheme” — to help local authorities understand the true number of holiday lets in their areas and restrict new ones if there are too many.
Critics of the Airbnb boom have blamed it for destroying the local rental market, leaving tourism workers nowhere to rent in short-staffed towns and villages, and further fuelling high house prices in the honeypot locations.
At a meeting of the full authority on Wednesday, Mr Leafe is to tell members that once the new registration scheme is operating: “It will mean we will have a much better understanding of the provision of holiday lets throughout the national park.”
Previously, in an eight-page submission to the Government, the LDNPA had warned that the future of Lake District communities was “seriously under threat” by the latest twist in the housing crisis.
It called for changes to planning rules and admitted that its own holiday let figures “under represented” the problem in the Lakes due to the difficulties in definitively identifying which properties were or were not being used as holiday lets.
Separately, the Government is also rolling out new planning measures to provide local areas with more control over the future growth of short-term lets.
It will mean that second home owners, which also let them out, will come under the scrutiny of the planning process.
Mr Leafe said it involved the creation of a new planning use class for short-term lets.
In a third move, the Government also proposes to introduce permitted development rights which would allow for a property to be easily changed back from a short-term let to a standard residential dwelling, however, it would also allow a property to be changed to a short-term let.
The difference being that planners could then intervene to stop the permitted development right by serving an Article 4 Direction — meaning such a change would require the operator going to the authority for full planning permission, where it would come under greater scrutiny.
“Only new short-term lets would require planning permission, existing holiday lets will be automatically reclassified,” Mr Leafe will say, adding that the changes do not affect hotels, hostels or B&Bs.”
A timeline for implementation of the register, the new use class and permitted development rights is yet to be detailed, although Mr Leafe expects the changes to be introduced this summer.
In 2022, as the post-pandemic boom in holiday lets was under way, the park published figures showing that as many as 77% properties in Martindale, near Ullswater, had no permanent resident.
In Matterdale it was put at 54%; at Barton with Pooley Bridge 49%; Patterdale 54% and Bampton 24%.
The former Cumbria Rural Housing Trust, which shut down in 2016, had previously said that in communities where the ownership of second homes was 20 per cent or more, their future sustainability would be adversely impacted.
Alastair Handyside, chairman of the Professional Association of Self-Caterers, said: “We welcome the introduction of a statutory register for all holiday let properties in England.
“We expect that the register will require businesses to show that they are safe and legal. We have long campaigned for this as many that list casually are simply not compliant.
“The planning measures are balanced, however we would urge the Government to implement the registration scheme first, so that real data is available before the planning legislation is implemented.”
