Editor

This time last year Cllr Gareth Thomas attended the AGM of the Barmouth Publicity Association, attended by many business owners in the town including owners of holiday lets.

Our members were greatly encouraged to hear Cllr Thomas’s passionate defence of the value of tourism to Gwynedd and to receive reassurance that he understood our members’ contribution to the local economy.

It was therefore disappointing to read comments attributed to him in your paper this week,in a debate on the proposal to increase the council tax premium on second properties to 100 per cent. According to your report, Cllr Thomas “rubbished the general spend and economic benefits of holiday homes compared to the same property being occupied all year round”.

I am surprised if these comments were indeed made by Cllr Thomas.

Gwynedd Council has, however,pursued a deliberate policy of confusion by lumping together‘holiday homes’, (properties occupied only by the owners and used as a second home), with Furnished Holiday Lets (FHLs properties owned but let out to holidaymakers on a self-catering basis). Indeed they are currently pursuing a policy that if successful would prevent FHLs from legally registering as businesses since they continue to argue that there is no difference between the two. Second homes are an issue every tourist area has to deal with, always exacerbated by the lack of good quality employment meaning that people are unable to afford to buy.Given that the price of property would have to fall by over half to make it affordable, this will not change regardless of the premium councillors choose to place on second homes.

However a significant proportion of all ‘second homes’ are in fact FHLs, (and well over half of all of those are owned by Gwynedd residents). Each FHL owned by a Gwynedd resident creates around £42,000 a year for the local economy. For properties owned by people resident outside Gwynedd, it is around £26,500. Across Gwynedd this equates to a total contribution of £144m.

Even adding in the remaining genuine second homes it is hard to imagine that full-time residents would contribute more than this.

The members of the Barmouth Publicity Association who own FHLs would welcome clarification from Cllr Thomas that he fully understands the massive contribution to Gwynedd’s economy made by FHLs.

David Brown Chairman Barmouth Publicity Association

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