One low paid hospitality job in Hawes.
Hardly a conclusive argument.
You can't get Chefs to work anywhere in Wensleydale at the moment, some are even offering bed and board to try and get people to commute:
[url= https://i.ibb.co/C76NszP/Screenshot-20230331-153409-Chrome.jp g" target="_blank">https://i.ibb.co/C76NszP/Screenshot-20230331-153409-Chrome.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
Well, if they will advertise with foreign job titles... that's not what we voted for!
😉
You can’t get Chefs to work anywhere in Wensleydale at the moment, some are even offering bed and board to try and get people to commute:
Supply and demand, post Brexit, more jobs than Chefs so they can pick and choose where to work....
Wenslydale needs to up it's wages to compete.
Tourism is all they’ve got and all they’re probably going to have.
Why? Does it have to be that way?
Economics.
Why on earth would anyone relocate well paying high tech jobs to a sparsely populated low skill area?
Governments have been wrestling with this problem since the 80s, they've offered subsidies which worked a bit, but none have really stuck and created any momentum. Mean while all the well paying jobs coalesce under gravity to their current geographic centers of gravity.
No idea what the answer is, but it's not a simple problem to fix.
Tourism is all they’ve got and all they’re probably going to have.
Why on earth would anyone relocate well paying high tech jobs to a sparsely populated low skill area?
You really hate the locals don't you?
You really hate the locals don’t you?
Not at all.
But I can see the reality and I understand the economics of the situation.
Like I say, people have been trying to fix this since the 80s and the end of heavy industry in Wales and no one has found a solution....
But if you have a solution, I'm all ears....
Could they not build a high speed rail line into London? 😂
Why on earth would anyone relocate well paying high tech jobs to a sparsely populated low skill area?
I would love to work in tech if it was WFH on a laptop in a remote part of Wales. Or maybe set up a small factory for making bike framesets. Or a factory somewhere reaaaally remote for making LSD, if we're talking about reviving old industries. Minimal environmental impact and probably quite good margins.
a lab supplying 100 countries with half a billion pounds of drugs, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix partying with farmers in Tregaron - when rural Wales produced 60% of the world's LSD
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/news-opinion/extraordinary-story-welsh-lsd-ring-12802907
@molgrips:
Why? Does it have to be that way?
You persuade google, microsoft, HSBC, Barclays or any of the major energy companies and the like to up sticks from their cities and move to rural wales where there's not enough bloody people then.
Until then, that's the reality. Tourism and farming. End. Of - and what do you expect with hills and fields? It's a tourism and farming economy. If you want a job - you go where the bloody job is. End of.
@matt_outandabout - have you actually looked at that link? Farming, mining, tourism and jobs that support tourism. There's NO BLOODY JOBS!
But there are LOADS of houses. Cheap cheap houses. They're not all in idylic tourist spots - but I refer you to the fact that I'd really love a house in Mayfair or Park Lane, but bloody millionaires own them.
I used to live in Nottingham and my job was in Sheffield or London. That's quite the commute. People seem to think they've got some god-given right to live in some pretty rural village, perhaps with a nice harbour. But the vast majority of the country don't live this way - they get off their arses and commute to work - or move cities to find jobs that pay well.
Right or wrong this is the economy we live in. Precious few "good" jobs are in Wales. Plenty of "tourism" jobs - because that's wales.
And there are lots and lots, and LOTS of cheap houses in Wales. Just not in the welsh versions of Mayfair or Park Lane - which are a tiny amount of the land mass.
Second home owners are NOT the problem.
Until then, that’s the reality. Tourism and farming. End. Of
maybe LSD too
Incidentally, this is a European wide problem, Italy and France are both wrestling with the same problem.
The Gillet Jaune protests were originally triggered by the "Paysage" feeling left behind economically by the cities...
Europe is going through a urbanisation phase where people, skills and resources are migrating towards the cities, leaving the countryside hollowed out.
I would love to work in tech if it was WFH on a laptop in a remote part of Wales
The thing is, if you're a start up or an expanding company, you want to be where you have access to the largest pool of talent and that means basically opening an office next door to your competitor. Sure, they'll be a load of talent who will be happy to work remotely from mid Wales, but as an employer you want them mingling with all your competitors employees so your pool of talent has all the latest ideas etc.
This is why you get industry based gravity which creates hubs of industry specific talent which just keep growing....
jameso,
I'd like to apply for the position of quality control tester at your LSD superlab in rural wales. I have vast experience, and a cracking record collection.
But there are LOADS of houses. Cheap cheap houses. They’re not all in idylic tourist spots – but I refer you to the fact that I’d really love a house in Mayfair or Park Lane, but bloody millionaires own them.
Except if you want a Chef in Mayfair, they can get the tube from somewhere (relatively) affordable in 20 minutes. If you want a Chef (or any tourism economy at all) in Wensleydale you can't expect them to commute from Middlesbrough. The two aren't comparable scenarios at all.
I'm not debating whether Alphabet should build a new AI campus at Ribblehead, I'm talking about existing jobs going unfilled because kids going to the local school and wanting to go into the farming or tourism jobs and stay local can't afford to.
If you want a job – you go where the bloody job is. End of.
Are you competing with Suella Braverman for 2023's bastard of the year?
Look, just because you have no clue about the problems of rural communities and don't give enough of a shit to find out, doesn't mean no-one else does. There is so, so much you just don't get, you're probably better off just keeping quiet at this point.
Sure, they’ll be a load of talent who will be happy to work remotely from mid Wales
If you are set up for people to work remotely they could be in Mid Wales or Mayfair it wouldn't matter.
We worried for about 2 weeks then it became clear that Pembrokeshire was going to be massively full, under-resourced and manic for every summer from now on.
So taking a few quid off each visitor to help towards emptying bins, cleaning beaches, opening toilets (all things that the cronically under-funded council should be doing but can’t) it fine with me. It really REALLY won’t even register as a cost to the vast majority of visitors. People on holiday pay for stuff without question, especially if it is just added to their accomodation fee at point of transaction.
I’ve paid it in France without even knowing about it until the reciept comes and it’s really ok.Your rant loses points for not calling him ‘Dripford’ like all the other mad folk in the WalesOnline comments.
Your rant loses points for not realising I was referring to the proposed increase to business rates for those running holiday homes. The tourism tax is neither here nor there, if as you say its a few quid for each visitor. No issue with that. But imposing a almost impossible occupancy target on holiday homes and a huge hike in business rates is way over the top and shows up the government for what they really are. Incompetent and cowardly bottle jobs who ran out of rational decent ideas years ago and who now resort to the blame game.
I'm all for the tax as long as it's genuinely going to be used to improve the area it is raised in. Asking a lot I know but you can hope! That's said as a South Wales local who holidays up North Wales regularly.
If the welsh government can raise more revenue through taxing visitors that sounds like it could be helpful. It might offset the loss in support for some projects that Wales has suffered as a consequence of the U.K. leaving the EU.
To folks’ point, while it’ll add an overhead, it could increase enthusiasm for such a tax if projects it supported were marked as such: ‘tourism tax at work’
All the locals hate those EU signs everywhere, they always say that all the EU paid for eas the bloody sign then took all the credit for that project. The same will most likely happen to any "Tourist Tax Spent Here" signs too.
I know Solva well. Have family in the area so visit often. Yeah, fair point, it is nice around there and always crawling with tourists in the summer. Especially if you’re into outdoors stuff.
We had a family holiday cottage for well over 4 decades, just up from the harbour opposite the Royal George. Loved it there with all the outdoors stuff all around. Even now, 20 years after it was sold, some of the locals recognize me whenever I go back. Haven't been back there for 5 years, might have to rectify that this year!
If you want a job – you go where the bloody job is. End of.
As a welshman born and raised in a rural bit of Mid Wales who has a job in Bristol but cannot afford to live there that is overly simplistic. I would love to live and work back where I grew up but house prices are astronomical and jobs poorly paid, basically not an option. That's not even in a really rural bit of Wales either, the situation in places around Rhayader, Dolgellau etc is worse but that's more to do with the quality of the jobs and poor wages. Even the cheap houses are unaffordable when you can't secure a mortgage or build up a deposit.
I’m not debating whether Alphabet should build a new AI campus at Ribblehead, I’m talking about existing jobs going unfilled because kids going to the local school and wanting to go into the farming or tourism jobs and stay local can’t afford to.
Yes they can. There's *LOADS* of cheap housing. And loads of kids in the tourist industry (on good wages too - it's not all minimum wage stuff).
But there's NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE to want to fill those chef roles. If they want to stay local, they're limited in their jobs - but there's plenty of housing. If they want a job that isn't farming or tourism then they have to move to the city. Just like everybody else.
It's not second-home-owner's fault that there's not enough jobs, and it's a LIE that there's not enough affordable housing. Welsh housing - outside of the mayfair-honeypots - is both plentiful and cheap cheap cheap.
Look, just because you have no clue about the problems of rural communities and don’t give enough of a shit to find out, doesn’t mean no-one else does. There is so, so much you just don’t get, you’re probably better off just keeping quiet at this point.
Just because you can't read that I live in a rural community in Wales and clearly understand the problems on my doorstep better than you do maybe that means you'd be better off "keeping quiet" for once, eh?
maybe LSD too
Funny you should say that. It was a bad day yesterday, I have a field, and I have an interest in "fungal microscopy", so some orders may have been made 😉
Governments have been wrestling with this problem since the 80s
Have they? Have they really?
Fatcha closed down all the mines and heavy industries in Wales and the north in the early 80’s without giving flying **** if anything replaced them or not, or what happened to the millions of newly unemployed
The term they used was ‘managed decline’, though there didn’t look like there was much managing going on from where I was watching, unless you class the easy availability of heroine
Have you any specific examples of this wrestling going on? Because I can’t think of any other than the odd token gesture
The only ‘solution’ on offer to anyone was, as Norman Tebbit pointed out, to ‘get on your bike’
That’s worked out well for everyone, hasn’t it? So now a broom cupboard in some knife-strewn hell-hole in the outskirts of London costs 7 squillion pounds a month to rent and in other places in the country you can’t give houses away because there are no jobs within a 50 mile radius
Hurray for free-market capitalism
@reluctantjumper:
As a welshman born and raised in a rural bit of Mid Wales who has a job in Bristol but cannot afford to live there that is overly simplistic. I would love to live and work back where I grew up but house prices are astronomical and jobs poorly paid, basically not an option. That’s not even in a really rural bit of Wales either, the situation in places around Rhayader, Dolgellau etc is worse but that’s more to do with the quality of the jobs and poor wages. Even the cheap houses are unaffordable when you can’t secure a mortgage or build up a deposit.
I don't think that's simplistic - I think you're actually agreeing with me. No jobs in Dol, Rhayader, etc. There's housing there that's cheap - but still unnafordable because there's no decent jobs to build up a mortgage or a deposit. But the fact is the houses are still cheaper than the rest of the UK. i.e. it's not the housing, it's the jobs.
People need to stop seeing themselves as victims. If you can't afford a mortgage or a house then it's because your job (if you have one) doesn't pay. If you want a job that pays, you have to go where the jobs are. If you do that, then you can afford a mortgage - and if you're wedded to a particular area that you love, that has no jobs, then it's likely the houses are cheaper so if, in the future, after you've done your hard work, you can potentially move back there.
This is what I did. 30 years of graft. Now can work from home in rural wales. But people moan that they can't get a house - but don't want to do the graft.
To flog the dead horse: It's not second-home owners making housing unaffordable. Housing is cheap. But even cheap housing is unaffordable if you've not got a decent job.
That's why kids leave Wales in droves. We can feel how we feel about it - but that's the reality. The answer is "reform capitalism and how we see work, home ownership, community, consumption and our very values" - but we won't be doing that any time soon, so the workshy or graft-less will moan about second home owners whilst not doing the perfectly achieveable - actually getting on with and improving their own lives.
Have you any specific examples of this wrestling going on?
Yep, there have been lots of subsidies to industry to open factories in South Wales, over the years..
There was even an allocation in the Kwasi's first / last / only budget: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/funds-to-create-pioneering-south-wales-industrial-cluster
But fundamentally, it's pushing water upstream with a fork.
If you have a good reason for industry to up sticks from a high density, high skill area and move to a low skill, low density area, you should tell the Welsh Government...
What tends to happen is they take the money, open something small and then close it once the subsidy runs out.
@binners:
That’s worked out well for everyone, hasn’t it? So now a broom cupboard in some knife-strewn hell-hole in the outskirts of London costs 7 squillion pounds a month to rent and in other places in the country you can’t give houses away because there are no jobs within a 50 mile radius
Hurray for free-market capitalism
You also agree with me 🙂
I also agree with you, with a couple of caveats. 1) The mines were crap jobs that needed to close. They're awful for everyone's health. It's a shame we exported that pain though. 2) the people who "got on their bikes" tended to do better. More power to the people who accepted the new reality and did something about it other than moan.
Capitalism sucks. 100%. We don't have to arrange the world like this - but we do.
But also 100% - it's not second home owners is it. 🙂
1) The mines were crap jobs that needed to close. They’re awful for everyone’s health. It’s a shame we exported that pain though.
I can recommend Germinal by Émile Zola, if you want to be really depressed.
Mind you, the horses had it worst, when Etienne first descended into a mine he was surprised to see a horse in there and asked how they got it in and out (they didn't, came in as a foal, left in a corner as a rotting carcass once it's finished).
I’d like to apply for the position of quality control tester at your LSD superlab in rural wales.
Just watch out for birdwatchers called Julie.
But the fact is the houses are still cheaper than the rest of the UK. i.e. it’s not the housing, it’s the jobs.
No - its the housing. Average wage will still struggle to buy a decent house in large parts of the UK. My flat was 2.5 times salary 30 years ago - now its worth ten times salary for a equivalent job. Housing is unaffordable for large swathes of the population. Rentals are stupid high as well - but have gone up less than the cost of a house.
Second home owners pricing locals out of the market has effects beyond the honeypot areas in putting up prices
Yet another money grab by the Welsh government..... But this is one that I approve of.
If they don't apply it to camp/caravan sites I'll be mightily pissed.
Obvs N Wales will see nothing of the money as it's funneled down to S Wales.
I'll come clean and say that I do have a second home there - it was bought by my M&D back in 1979 and I have inherited it.
Over the years we have paid in far, far more than the miniscule amount we have taken out in the way of council tax and yet they seem to think that I deserve to pay triple council tax.
Our house, along with countless thousands others, were built as [and given planning permission as] holiday homes. And yet we're the bad guys.
I can't afford it and will ultimately have to sell bringing and end to over 50 years of our families association with the place that is more "home" than my house in England.
I'd understand more if they had a plan for the money they're raising.
It started off as a way to create local affordable homes for 'local' people but when they finally realised that locals don't actually want to stay there, as the jobs are elsewhere, they changed to reason to being because of the homeless numbers that increased during Drakefords rediculous brainwashing and extended lockdowns.
The truth is the money will just head into the WG coffers for pissing away on useless projects in S Wales.
I've always thought there should be a tourist tax - it's common all over the world - I wish them luck with it.
Edit: just seen the proposals and there's no plan to touch campsites or caravan/motorhome parks. What a joke.
Plaid Cymru clearly don't want to piss off the farmers who fill the fields with tents and caravans. They really are f*****g useless.
I'll sell my house, buy a massive chalet and pay nothing to be there.
But they’d locate where the best and brightest are? .
No they ****ing don't. They just go to SE England by default because that's were all the other moronic pricks base their businesses.
<div id="post-12775683" class="bbp-reply-header d-flex justify-content-between w-100">
<div class="bbp-reply-author d-flex align-items-center flex-wrap">
chevychase
Full Member
@molgrips:Why? Does it have to be that way?
You persuade google, microsoft, HSBC, Barclays or any of the major energy companies and the like....
</div>
So much truth in those posts Chevy.
No – its the housing. Average wage will still struggle to buy a decent house in large parts of the UK.
No, there's no one local there to buy them. Take the llyn peninsula for example.... The jobs there are almost entirely farming or tourism related.
..... And nearly all the second homes were built as second homes - in addition to what was there already.
There has not been a massive increase in local population requiring more homes.
Take tourism away and you'd be left with ghost town/villages.
</div>
But the fact is the houses are still cheaper than the rest of the UK. i.e. it’s not the housing, it’s the jobs.
If decent jobs arrive in these areas then house prices will jump up, keeping them unaffordable for most. Look what happened to Chepstow, Magor and Caldicot when the Tolls were taken off the bridges: house prices jumped 10% overnight and have continued to accelerate upwards as Bristol residents moved across. Take a look at what happened when the Pandemic pushed every company to accept home working: everyone that could moved to the countryside looking for space and outdoor access. Prices jumped up and priced locals with local jobs even further out of the market.
Take my wage: £28k a year. That gets me a maximum mortgage of £135k with a 10% deposit (plus fees/surveys etc). Realistically it's a £100k mortgage and to be within a sensible commute of my work that buys the square root of **** all. If I were to move to where there is cheaper housing, let's choose Blaenau Ffestiniog as an example, I could afford to buy a terraced house. But there is no work there that would pay me the required wage to get the mortgage in the first place. Now let's look at somewhere I would love to live: Brecon. House prices are high and wages are low, the worst combination. There's also virtually no rental market to talk about so that's out too. It's an area popular with tourists and has a lot of second homes, Air B&B's and the like. It's an area that suffers with tourist overload - walkers, day trippers, campers, caravans, mountain bikers, motor enthusiasts etc. These put a big load on the local facilities and a Tourist Tax will help pay for that. Together with the other measures it may well help keep a cap on house prices so that locals with local jobs can afford to stay there.
Except if you want a Chef in Mayfair, they can get the tube from somewhere (relatively) affordable in 20 minutes
lollll!!! Average rent on a one bed flat within 20 minutes commute of Mayfair is not lower than £1300 a month/£15,600 a year. Even if you go 30 mins (station to station) on the tube, you'll be lucky to get rent down to £1200 a month. Average pretax wages for a sous chef in Mayfair is £32,143 a year. 49% of pretax salary on rent is not affordable.
https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/housing-and-land/improving-private-rented-sector/london-rents-map
https://www.caterer.com/jobs/sous-chef/in-mayfair
People want to live here and want to be able to afford a house near where they work but they can’t…because they are priced out of the market.
How is that different to anywhere else in the UK? Where in the UK is housing affordable - compared to local salaries, not some mythical future where we are all Java nerds working remotely from Aberystwyth.
Some data for you:
Sorry to bring the B word up, but I’d happily pay a tax for visiting places. With one caveat, if the majority of the people in said place voted leave, tough shit, reap what you sow.
This whole affordability argument is absolute bollocks too. I earn a very good wage and can’t afford to move from a two bed house to a three. The jump in price is insurmountable. Yes, I could move to a shitty area, but I grew up in one and I’m not putting my kids through that. Likely that me and Mrs F will end up sleeping in the living room at some point in the next few years.
My flat was 2.5 times salary 30 years ago – now its worth ten times salary for a equivalent job.
But you are center of Edinburgh no?
Those areas have benefited from urbanisation, ie demand >> supply. There are rural areas where demand < supply....
On the subject of Jobs in rural areas and the trend of urbanisation, some interesting reading on the OECD website....
Digitalisation can help rural regions to overcome some of their traditional challenges. Low density and shrinking local markets are two of the main bottlenecks for long-term sustainability in many rural economies (see Chapter 3). These characteristics tend to inhibit the formation of economies of scale, making it difficult for businesses to grow and for workers to find the right labour opportunities to apply their skills. Firms in small, local economies struggle when it comes to competing against firms in urban areas that can produce higher volumes at more strategic locations closer to customers (OECD, 2019[2]). Digitalisation can offer new growth possibilities and opportunities for better and more diversified jobs in rural regions. Some effects of the digital age that can provide a boost for rural regions include reduction of trade times and costs, the exchange of new types of products and services, and disruptive ways to work and join the labour market.
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/ae6bf9cd-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/ae6bf9cd-en
And on the trend of urbanisation...
Europe's level of urbanisation is expected to increase to approximately 83.7% in 2050.
Trends in the total population of EU27 and UK from 1961 to 2018 show a decline in the share of population living in rural areas over the total population, while towns and cities experienced a smooth and constant increase.
Whereas the total population of European Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) is projected to increase on average by 4% by 2050, almost half of them will actually lose population, with 10% of cities losing more than a quarter of their population between 2015 and 2050.
The migration of population to cities is one of the factors driving agricultural land abandonment, which is expected to reach 4.2 million ha net over the period 2015-2030, bringing the total abandoned land to 5.6 million ha by 2030, the equivalent of 3% of total agricultural land.
Built-up areas are likely to expand by more than 3% between 2015 and 2030, reaching 7% of the EU territory by 2030.
In 2015 France had the largest absolute built-up area in the EU – more than 5 million ha, 17% of the EU total, followed by Germany (4.2 million ha, 14%) and Italy (2.9 million ha, 10%). In relative terms (built-up as share of the total territory), the densely populated Malta, Belgium and the Netherlands topped the list with 35%, 22% and 21% respectively.
By 2030, built-up areas are expected to expand across most of the EU. Italy will see the largest absolute increase (+144 thousand ha), followed by Germany (+128 thousand ha) and Poland (+121 thousand ha). The highest relative growth, around 6%, is expected in Romania and Belgium. On the other hand, some decrease in built-up land is likely in Bulgaria and Croatia.
https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/foresight/topic/continuing-urbanisation/urbanisation-europe_en
@jambourgie, you're hired as tester and DJ. My interest is purely in location and low impact business potential. Plus, "As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster"
(of sorts, a hippy gangster would be perfect)
It's the same with most pretty areas. They are that way because there is a low population, not much commerce and therefore few jobs. I'm all for it. The proposed levy is purely tokenism from a payee's perspective (~£1 per night) but collectively creates a useful fund to protect those areas e.g. funding mountain rescue. The big problems atm are finding staff for low wage jobs in hospitality. Most school leavers will depart for the big city and never come back.
Surely the Welsh language and culture is worth a few quid per night to protect? Then it will be there next year!
Wales also had many EU 'Objective 1' areas which received £billions of funding in the past. That's now gone and the levelling up fund/Mid Wales Growth deal will only provide £millions so if you want to enjoy the same comforts, cough up!
if you want to enjoy the same comforts, cough up!
You would have thought the Brexit-voting North Welshmen that ought to cough up for the Brexit dividend rather than the bourgeois Remoaner holidaymakers...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum
Can't believe anyone would moan about this. Whilst tourism is an integral part of the Welsh economy, it creates a lot of negative externalities (demand on public services, footpath erosion, parking problems etc etc). Paying less than 1% of a hotel stay towards restitution of the locale is surely a good thing!
Wales has lost ~£1 billion in funding since Brexit: https://www.gov.wales/written-statement-loss-funding-wales-result-uk-governments-arrangements-replacement-eu-funding
The Welsh people also overwhelmingly voted for Brexit: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/elections-and-referendums/past-elections-and-referendums/eu-referendum/results-and-turnout-eu-referendum/eu-referendum-results-region-wales
What does this have to do with tourism tax? Wales voted for something that cut funding to them and is now trying to make up for it with tourism tax. The Welsh government hasn't exactly done a lot to provide an alternative to tourism based jobs for the Welsh people.
£2 a night is neither here nor there for people that can afford to go on holiday. No issues paying it so I can go on holiday. I do have a problem with paying money because of the Welsh governments gross incompetence.
The Welsh people also overwhelmingly voted for Brexit
That's not overwhelming.
Wales voted for something that cut funding to them
Well, we were told that there wouldn't be a cut, in fairness. The main problem was that people believed the government.
The Welsh government hasn’t exactly done a lot to provide an alternative to tourism based jobs for the Welsh people.
There are a number of schemes, whether or not they work is the real question.
There are a number of schemes, whether or not they work is the real question.
Whether or not they can ever work is the real question.
It's not the Welsh governments job to "create jobs" - it's their job to ensure that businesses that want to locate in Wales can thrive. But the job creation thing is business' role - and big business wants a big pool of people to choose from. With the best will in the world the Welsh government can't magic up half a million well-educated people in rural wales within half an hour's drive of Landridod Wells (population 5000 - quite a big town for the area.)
At some point, people have to take responsibility for the choices they make. That's why loads of the kids leave - because opportunity is better elsewhere. And that's not the fault of the businesses or of the Welsh government. It's just a fact of life.
And still. Housing is cheap, cheap, cheap.
The second homeowners thing is a load of crap and utterly misrepresented by the scummy nationalists. 6% of homeowners in Gwynedd own a second home - the majority of them in Gwynedd. That's locals soaking up the local second home stock - not "incomers" like Plaid keep screaming about. When you compare census-data on second home ownership and council tax data that supports the analysis - most of the second-home owners people who own second homes live local. (So the council tax double or triple-whammy hits the locals.) And still, outside of the "mayfair" areas, plenty of cheap(-er than the rest of the UK) and available housing.
It’s not the Welsh governments job to “create jobs”
Disagree with this completely.
It is the job of the government to create the conditions that companies can use to create jobs, but how that gets done varies a lot. It might be simply building the roads that companies need to get their goods in and out, or it might be creating tax breaks to encourage businesses to set up. Or it might be educating people so that they have the skills that lead to the innovations required to create jobs etc. All jobs depend on governments in some way.
It’s just a fact of life.
Lots of countries have started poor and gone on to grow strong economies.
Japan
South Korea
Ireland
And more I'm sure. So I don't think having a poor economy is an intrinsic characteristic of geography.
6% of homeowners in Gwynedd own a second home – the majority of them in Gwynedd.
Bottom line: is it fair that people can buy two of a limited resource when others have none? Your answer to this depends on your political compass (so I think I know what your answer will be) and that, IMO, depends on your level of empathy for people who aren't in your immediate social or familial group.
most of the second-home owners people who own second homes live local
Is that to rent them out to tourists? So we're back to the problem of communities actually disappearing, yes?
Disagree with this completely.
Oh you do do you? Why not quote my whole sentence?
It’s not the Welsh governments job to “create jobs” – it’s their job to ensure that businesses that want to locate in Wales can thrive. But the job creation thing is business’ role – and big business wants a big pool of people to choose from
So, actually what you said. You're just disagreeing for disagreeing's sake.
Bottom line: is it fair that people can buy two of a limited resource when others have none?Bottom line: is it fair that people can buy two of a limited resource when others have none?
There are plenty of cheap houses in wales. Plenty. If you can't afford a home in Wales - where houses are cheaper than the much of the rest of the UK - then you need to get a better job. If the jobs aren't there - then unfortunately like the rest of the bloody country you need to go where they are.
That's fair. Get off your shiftless arse and go and get a better job instead of sitting in your pants repeating the lie that there are no houses and that second home owners are driving the prices up - because other than in the Mayfair destinations they are not.
Cheap housing available all over the place in Wales. It's a a giant lie to say there isn't. If you choose to stay, when many others move away to better their prospects, then that's your choice. OWN it and don't moan about it.
So we’re back to the problem of communities actually disappearing, yes?
Second homes have been the saviour of many communities. Villages that were previously doomed through lack of jobs have actually grown because of second homes.
Take Abersoch for example (although this could be applied to many places on the llyn peninsula) in the early 70's it had a newsagents, two pubs a butcher, pharmacy one restaurant and two grocers.
During the 70's and 80's there were a lot of homes built, all as second homes. It now has the same two pubs, 4 bars, 9 restaurants, the butchers, about 5 or 6 clothes shops, the pharmacy, the newsagents, at least one deli, two coffee shops, two estate agents, 3 surf shops and a few others that I've forgotten about.
Nearly every one of these businesses is open all year whereas the place used to be a ghost town from October - April.
All these businesses have grown because of second homes as they are used year round either by the owners or by the people renting them. Then there's the jobs created by the second homes - plumbers, electricians, decorators and gardeners are all needed purely because of the number of second homes and the amount of tourism they generate.
Many people think that second homes are used for 3 or 4 weeks a year and lie idle the rest of the time, whereas the reality is that many of them are are rented out which creates the places for tourists to go as there are no hotels left there now. This creates the jobs, which keeps people employed locally which creates the community (and the income from the tourist tax).
Some of by greatest, and oldest, friends are Welsh 'locals' - many with businesses and they all completely disagree with what the Welsh government are doing.
Get rid of the empty second homes and you'll just be left with empty dying communities.
Get rid of the empty second homes and you’ll just be left with empty dying communities.
Edit: Get rid of the second homes and you’ll just be left with empty dying communities.
Cheap housing available all over the place in Wales.
Wales is a fair size. If you're want to stay close to your family and home in say Gwynedd (outrageously selfish as that might be) then a house in the Rhondda isn't much good to you is it?
Are you saying that families, friends and communities don't matter? It's a good job free childcare is so good so you can still get a job when you have small kids and you don't need grandparents to look after them.. And elder care is so good that you can be assured your parents will be happy and well provided for as they age.. oh, wait, that's not true.
Get off your shiftless arse
I.. what the actual ****? You just want to be a bastard for the sake of it, don't you? You really don't understand humanity in the least.
There are arguments to be made - Sharkbait makes a good one - but suggesting that people are simply lazy for not wanting to leave their homes and families behind is pretty shitty. Do you really have no concept of the value of community and support network?
