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Gwynedd raises council tax premium on second homes to 150%

Second-home owners in Gwynedd will have to pay a 150% council tax premium to tackle the area’s spiralling and “immoral” homelessness crisis.

Councillors in Gwynedd agreed to raise the premium from its current 100% level – already twice what permanent residents pay – and use the extra £3m it believes it will raise to provide more accommodation for struggling people to find a home.

During a heated meeting in Caernarfon, councillors described homeless families facing Christmas living in budget hotels and B&Bs in Gwynedd. At the same time, wealthy outsiders enjoyed second homes in one of the most scenic parts of the UK.

One councillor said a member of her community had been on the waiting list for social housing for three years and had had to stay in the home where a relative had killed themselves in the living room. Another said increasing the premium showed that Welsh communities were “not for sale”.

Calling the decision “very significant”, Ioan Thomas, the cabinet member for finance on the Plaid Cymru-controlled council, said: “We believe that the basis of a sound economy is an economy where the people of Gwynedd have homes and contribute.”

The homelessness figures were “very alarming”, he said. “We can’t ignore a situation where it is estimated that 1,400 individuals will have presented themselves as homeless by the end of this year – double the number presenting before Covid-19. As a council, we will be accommodating over 600 people in temporary accommodation this year, where the figure was about 200 before Covid.”

Until now, the focus of the debate across tourist hotspots in Wales has been second homes pushing up the price of buying houses and flats beyond the reach of local people. Gwynedd argues that this knock-on effect sends rental prices soaring and forces more people into homelessness.

The Welsh government has said councils have the discretion to raise the council tax premiums on second homes to as high as 300%.

Craig ab Iago, the cabinet member for housing, said the idea was not to punish people and said second-home owners were not “monsters”. But he said: “We are in a housing crisis. We’re talking about 200 people plus sleeping in B&Bs. There is a list of more than 3,000 people waiting over three years for a social house.

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