Is it possible to legislate to control the housing challenges the UK faces?
Already, we’ve seen Cornwall residents wishing to control the building of second homes. However, a high court challenge against a ban on building new second homes in a popular Cornish town has been thrown out.
Cornwall Council’s Cabinet Member for Planning, Edwina Hannaford, said: “This is a hugely important judgement for Cornwall, St Ives Town Council and for the residents of St Ives who wanted to ensure that any new homes in the town would be the resident’s sole or main residence.
“We also know a number of other local communities, both in Cornwall and across the rest of the country, are interested in including similar policies in their own Neighbourhood Plans and have been watching this case with interest.”
How do readers view this decision and is this the start of something much bigger? For instance, should we restrict non-residents from purchasing UK property? The idea being that if wealthy foreigners didn’t buy the properties then they would be available for UK residents and hence the housing shortage would be lessened.
We live in interesting times and 2018 is certain to present its fair share of opportunity and challenge for the property market.