Friends of the Lake District campaigns for landscapes that are tranquil, rich in cultural heritage and environmentally healthy. Our concept of landscape is holistic: it comprises people and communities as well as nature. Where communities are in decline and the balance between community, economy and nature is being upset, the landscape’s character changes for the worse.

In some parts of the National Park, there are three times as many properties given over to self-catering visitor accommodation as there are lived-in dwellings. With an increasing number of properties empty or underused as the permanent population declines, communities are being hollowed out and local services and businesses lost.

Controlling the number of short-term lets and second homes would ensure a better balance between the value that tourism brings to the local economy, the needs of those wanting to stay in, and enjoy, the National Park and the needs of permanent residents. Achieving this aim would contribute to our vision of thriving Cumbrian landscapes, for nature, for people, for ever.

We want to solve the lack of affordable housing in the Lake District by tightening the rules on short-term letting, (further) disincentivising second homes – already subject to 200% council tax – and bringing underused properties back onto the housing market. Not only will this restore community vibrancy in heavily visited areas, but it will also reduce the amount of new build needed and ease the pressure to put new homes in less sustainable locations.

Concretely, we are calling on the government to introduce a mandatory national register for short-term let visitor accommodation. This must apply retrospectively to existing as well as new short-term lets. To make a register an active tool for reducing the community impacts of short-term letting, new legislation should be introduced requiring short-term holiday lets to secure a license from the relevant local authority. Local authorities should be empowered to refuse new licences where a significant proportion of properties are already given over to holiday letting.

Making dwellings, holiday lets and second homes separate use classes with a requirement for planning permission to change from a permanent residence to a second home or holiday let would give local planning authorities the power to refuse permission where such changes would (further) hollow out a community.

Finally, introducing a requirement for holiday lets to pay council tax (including any premium in place) rather than much lower business rates would close the loophole by which holiday let owners are rewarded for the negative social impacts of having converted their property.

Visitor spending tends to be narrowly focused on immediate needs for food and recreation, whereas local residents contribute consistently to the local economy and keep services viable year-round. Long-term residents create jobs, provide a workforce, use services and contribute to community cohesion – through volunteering and membership of clubs and societies – in ways that short-term visitors do not.

Rather than housing being geared towards visitors, a balanced housing mix would support both tourism and community life.

There is arguably less and less of an off-season. And the problem of un-used or underused homes is already spread across the whole year since most holiday lets and second homes don’t suddenly become lived-in homes during the off-season. Increasing visitors and spreading them across the whole year notionally ‘solves’ the problem of underuse but at a cost of creating villages with no schools, no doctors’ surgeries, no community and no character. There has to be a better balance struck between permanent residents and visitors to maintain community cohesion and landscape character.

Housing is essential infrastructure, and its use affects everyone – just like roads, water, and schools. Planning rules already exist to protect communities and ensure that individuals’ choices as to what they do with their property align with the public interest, but they need updating to respond to the proliferation in holiday accommodation.

We are not telling people that they cannot rent out their property as a holiday let (or own a second home) but that they should pay for the social / community impacts of doing so. This is necessary to balance the benefits of the visitor economy with ensuring that the proportion of the housing stock given over to visitor accommodation is not detrimental to the areas that people are coming to visit.

We recognise that some farmers have turned to holiday lets in the face of rising costs and an uncertain farming payment regime, and that this may bring in a good portion of their income. The impacts of them doing so are likely to be less than in towns and villages where a high proportion of properties are made over from permanent residential use to short-term letting. At the same time, we do not support unlimited holiday letting on farms or a level of holiday letting that distorts the housing market and prevents locals finding a suitable home.

It should be noted too that there are already, in the Lake District National Park Authority’s Supplementary Planning Document on housing, restrictions on new build around farms and on the conversion of existing buildings from an agricultural use to a residential use.

An ageing population is part of the picture, but it does not exist in isolation. High housing costs and a lack of available homes drive younger people and families away, accelerating demographic imbalance. Short-term lets and second homes reduce the supply of housing, making it harder for younger residents to stay or return. These factors reinforce each other rather than acting separately.

Those letting out their properties or using them as second homes should recognise the impact that this has on local communities and consider making their properties available instead for long-term rent by local families / workers.

Visitors to Cumbria should be sensitive to the impacts that short-term holiday lets have on communities in the Lake District in deciding where to stay. In some areas, staying in other forms of accommodation such as hostels, traditional B&Bs and campsites might be more beneficial for communities. Our campaign aims to level the playing field between hotels and traditional B&Bs on the one hand and short-term lets booked through platforms such as Airbnb on the other. This would make the former more attractive to visitors.