Second homeowners are harming local communities and the planet
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In addition to the climate impacts, owning a second home has damaging social consequences.
By Donnachadh McCarthy
It is harder for a rich holiday homeowner than a camel to get through the eye of the zero carbon needle.
In a recent speech in parliament, the Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron equated the impact of rocketing second home ownership in Cumbria with the 19th century Scottish land clearances, when the aristocracy swept tenant farmers off their ancestral lands and replaced them with sheep. He said that whole towns and villages across his constituency were becoming second home ghost towns.
Farron’s speech brings the plethora of destructive impacts of second home ownership on communities, young people, nature and climate destruction into the public eye.
It was only when regional airline Flybe was going bankrupt and I read an interview with a “victim” in London, complaining she could no longer fly every weekend down to her holiday home in Cornwall, that I twigged that second homeow...
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