Editor

Today, 4 March, councillors will vote on the Cabinet’s proposal to increase the council tax premium to an additional 100 per cent on second homes and long-term empty dwellings and I would urge them to vote against it.

I am a 27-year-old renter who like thousands of adults in their 20s across Wales, struggle to get onto the housing market. With a bit of good fortune, I will buy with my soon-to-be wife before I turn 30. But this policy will not solve the plight of young adults.

This policy will just see second homes change hands between other second-home owners who can afford the additional premium. It will raise little to no revenue to build the so-called affordable homes the council proposes to do and it just causes ill-feeling among the community.

It also undermines our very successful visitor economy, which sees money circulating among the local economy.

Rather, the biggest driver of our housing problems is that affordable housing is just not that affordable to local people.We desperately need to make Gwynedd more economically competitive. We need to see the conditions put in place for a private sector boom, with new businesses created, with well paid jobs created for local people, closing the gap between prices and wages.

From that place, we then need to implement that positive agenda of making available more social housing and private rental accommodation, and expanding Help to Buy. We also need to see town planning changed to see more residential properties available.

The powers are in Gwynedd Council and Welsh Government’s disposal. But I fear this policy is about politics, not improving the lives of the people of Dwyfor, Meirionnydd and Arfon.

Charlie Evans Conservative candidate,Dwyfor Meirionnydd

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