I wonder how many folk from Newbury have considered the recent Clegg plan to add extra taxes to
folk with another home which they don't need.

Apart from grandstanding the proposal to allow councils to charge full charge on properties,
which has been in effect for a decade or so.
How long before there is a property requisition for these Stalinists of Lib-Dem policy. Maybe a Council Charge for Office/Allotment sheds
Don't forget most cute seaside villages were abandoned by children in the hope of a better life outside smelly fishing jobs.

Buy to let and investments are not something I refer to. Merely income (after tax) invested in a home for all time
without the nightmare of a 2 week Gite and "are we there yet?"
ce

Personally speaking, I have no problem with people who own more than one home getting heavily taxed for it. It's a luxury, at a time when many hard-working folk are struggling to even get on the first rung of the property ladder. And well-off people snapping up second/third/forth properties are only making the lack of available housing (and therefore inflated house prices) worse. If people want somewhere of their own where they can holiday then buy a chalet, or other type of holiday home.

Well, my own home is massively inflated. I couldn't afford to buy in Newbury let alone Islington.
So then, the countryside from the 70's was littered with abandoned village homes in not seaside areas.
I bought one. It allowed a family to find a haven for an infirm relative, and I have supported local builders and gardeners for 30 years(and pubs).
ce

In other words, "I haven't got one so I don't see why anyone else should have one" same thinking that goes on in little peoples minds when the see a nice car and go out and key it. Nice.

I don't think it looks like that at all, but I also think the initiative is misplaced too.

Dear Nothing Much,

Back in June the Telegraph reported Nick Clegg stated "that out-of-town property owners are "filleting" local communities and "leaving young people in rural communities unable to buy homes""

The paper went on to say that Clegg told a press conference that the coalition had already granted councils the power to charge the full rate of council tax on holiday homes, and the Liberal Democrats will "constantly look" at how they can go further and that a senior Liberal Democrat source stated that the Party was considering council tax surcharges on second homes.

The Party considering something does not make it the Party policy, but demonstrates that it is open minded.

Given the cost and scarcity of homes in and around Newbury, and certainly in many holiday locations I am pretty sure that the local residents will share Nick Clegg's concerns regarding these predominantly empty buildings, which in my opinion does not exactly make this "Stalinist" by any imagination.

The reality of the problem was outlined by Andrew George, the Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, who has warned that there is an “inexorable trend of turning our rural communities into the exclusive preserve of the better off.”

How many of our local villages suffer from this very reality, I dare say most!

Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera
Newbury Town Council - Councillor for Victoria Ward & Deputy Leader

Thanks for the reply Councillor.
I firstly posted to wonder if there were 2nd home owners living in Newbury with property elsewhere,in the UK,
and then also if there were owners from elsewhere who had chosen to have another home in Newbury.

Of course those with Algarve condos or further afield is not my interest, as I am not involved there.
In the decades after WW2 massive problems led to unbearable poverty in some areas.
London was massively bulldozed to cure problems of sanitation and overcrowding.
Cute seaside ports in Norfolk decayed. Without local philanthropy nothing would exist today.

My own village which boasts a large common and a Taverner translater of the Bible had a derelict building.
The house was kept up by ivy and finally after 30 years has been rebuilt. Owned by a local estate agent.

I am happy for councils to employ encouragements to improve property and to bring unused spaces to use.
I do think that treating the well off who have in my case forgone turtle swimming in the Maldives is unfair.
ce

Ps sorry about the last line. Nothing personal intended.

And.....
Councillor, just to say I have a strong heartfelt connection to a town I came to after Papua New Guinea.
I would like to end my days in Burghclere,Boxford or Bagnor
ce

Dear Nothing Much,

You have a right to your opinion and expressing it on this forum so no offence was taken. The LibDem's lose a lot of sleep over the unfairness and inequality of housing in the UK and there is no easy quick fix answer.

Having lived in a number of villages in my time (as a police officer so I immediately overcame the NIMBY label) I am only too aware that young people in rural areas simply cannot afford to remain near their families and personably I see this as a huge loss for the cohesion of the village and surrounding area. The loss of young people leads to reduced services such as schools, etc and the cycle of service deprivation continues.

Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera
Newbury Town Council - Councillor for Victoria Ward & Deputy Leader

I was just wondering really. Ruwan.
Some of my neighbours in Norfolk have places in France.
Many of my neighbours here in N1 have homes elsewhere.
Andrew Mitchell for a start. That's a different story.

How far could the 2nd home police be conditioned to extract tax.
It does become academic.
ce.
by the way I am Christopher Elsom. I have given up my privacy along with the colonoscopy
My youtube channel is cje49
You will find stuff about Iraq and me.

If the real reason is to overcome unaffordable housing perhaps the money raised and additional council tax should be ring-fenced to go towards affordable housing, rather than the usual practice of wasting it on Government officials, politicians and their hair-brained vanity projects!

I absolutely adore it when politicians like Clegg, someone at the top oh the financial tree and someone with access to a great property portfolio starts to lecture us, the electorate on the evils of owning a second home. Hypocrisy of the very highest order, so high it stinks. Trying to catch a few votes. Need to do better than that if he wants to come higher than 4th next year.

The 50%discount was hedged a long time ago.
I pay the full amount.
That includes a contribution for most services that the council provides.
ce

Mr Councillor Ruwan,

This Council Tax stuff is daft..
Without delving into history of Labour and changing life style and life homogenesitatin or whatever
Cornwall Tin Mines are being opened up again albeit with modern use.

I think splitting families up can also increase the burden on the welfare state as people loose the ability to call on family for support, as it were.

I think this is also a false argument. Hypocrisy is when people seek to deny others something they have access to themselves, Diane Abbot schooling for example. What is hypocritical about proposing legislation that could cost the originators of the proposal? That is not hypocrisy.

Sadly, the only value this country has is in its land ownership/home ownership portfolio, that and the ability for big business and the wealthy to hide cash from tax. Until the labour class are as poor as South Americans, Asians and East Asians, we will have little else to offer the world.

As a laissez faire liberal I have no problem at all with people owning as much property as they can. I have a lot of concern for people who can't afford even one home, but I don't see the two issue as so obviously linked as they might appear.

If local children can't afford to live in the pretty villages that their parents grew up in then so what? I'd like to live in a pretty village, I imagine that most of us would like that, but it's largely only available to the affluent. If you want to do well in life then get a good education and work hard.

I'm more bothered about the children of parents who don't impress upon them the value of a good education and hard work. They grow up unprepared and disadvantaged, and it can be a bit of a cycle.

Fiddling with the tax regime or funny-money "affordable" housing will inevitably make the problem worse (if you don't believe me, ask Adam Smith). Is the idea to charge every home the same council tax whether it's a second home or not? Great, don't know why there ever was a second home discount.

And no, I don't have a second home, but if I had the money I'd buy somewhere nice in Southwold.

Right on bro.

Yes Simon Kirby. There is an old school reality to your laissez-fair & I am happy to conserve .
So much was destroyed over the war years that it is a trust that we must keep even scraps of old buildings going.
Well a record of the scraps anyway.

The fabric of my Norfolk building is basically rubbish from 1830,the same from London 1831... built as slums for clerks.
ce

Quite.


To coin a phrase: "...but I don't see the two issue as so obviously linked as they might appear".

Hard work and a good education are not guaranteed to provide anything and the wealth many have now is as much to do with luck as anything else. Actually, in most cases, it is everything to do with luck.