ABSTRACT
The ultimate aim of the three chapters comprising Part 3 of this book is to move towards a practicable and evidence-based framework for responding to second home pressures in the UK. Our intention is that this framework – set out in Chapter 9 – should be grounded in a full understanding of the second home issue, draw on real case study situations (especially those set out in Chapter 4) and recognise what can be learnt from experiences elsewhere in Europe (Chapters 5 and 6). It is also our intention to establish a framework that builds on past policy initiatives and reflects on how this policy has evolved over a period of time. With this in mind, chapters 7 and 8 examine how policy makers in the UK have already experimented with different responses to second home and broader housing pressures in the countryside. Chapter 4 considered the form that second home pressures take in Wales and
England, using research conducted in 2001 and 2002. In chapter 5, we drew on recent work for the Scottish Executive (Shucksmith et al, 2000) to consider how a number of European countries have recently been responding to the second homes issue, and to wider housing affordability concerns. And finally, chapter 6 considered how new sources of external demand can create housing pressures where they coincide with planning constraint. The purpose of this first ‘framework’ chapter is not to consider how effective policy might be formulated within the UK – but to examine some of the suggestions put forward in prior studies. The capacity of some of these suggestions to deliver positive outcomes on the ground today is reflected upon using our own research. We consider in this chapter and in chapter 8 how present housing and planning frameworks might be used to respond to second homes (reducing their costs and maximising their benefits). This feeds into a view as to how we feel they should be used, which is set out in Chapter 9. More than 25 years ago, Dower (1977) suggested that options for controlling the growth in second home numbers and their impacts fall into three broad categories: economic and social development, housing policy options and planning and development control (p.161). Dower’s division of options provides a useful framework for this discussion.
