Landlord turns holiday homes into long-term lets as he ‘can’t face young people’

Robert Gray stands to lose three quarters of his rental income once he converts all three of the cottage he owns in Portscatho on the Roseland Peninsula in Cornwall

A landlord is converting three holiday cottages into long-term lets for local people due to his concerns about the number of second homes.

Robert Gray is scrapping his lucrative holiday lets business in the community of Portscatho on the Roseland Peninsula in Cornwall.

He has already switched one of the cottage to a long-term let – which is now being rented out by a 23-year-old entrepreneur – and plans to change the other two by the end of the summer.

Robert has concerns about what the holiday let market is doing to the area, and the impact it is having on young would-be-buyer’s lives.

If you are a holiday-let landlord or someone impacted by second homes, let us know how you feel about this in the comments below

“I think the last thing this little village, and quite a bit of Cornwall, needs is another second home,” he told ITV.

“Every time a house comes up for sale it suddenly gets snapped up – and I just can’t look the young people in the face who say ‘we would love to live in granny’s old cottage but we can’t’.”

The decision has not been an easy one for Robert, who stands to lose about three quarters of the revenue from the properties.

“The reason I am doing it is I think it’s good for the village and the community,” he added.

According to estimates by estate agents Barrows and Forrester, there are more than £2 billion worth of empty homes in Cornwall, which is around 7,083 empty houses in the county.

There has been debate in the county this year about whether to bring in holiday home licences and a cap on the number of second homes.

Robert, who also ran a B&B in Greenwich in London, told Cornwall Live : “We’ve got to have holiday lets and it’s perfectly legitimate, as long as you go back and use it rather than parking your money in property and then using it one week a year.

“I think that’s the heart of it. All these houses probably have spare rooms or outhouses, but of course they’re all empty.”

While the landlord has been leasing out the homes for 50 years, he began to have doubts when he moved to the area fulltime four years ago.

“I’ve been coming here a long time but I remember when I came here permanently, I thought, ‘you have to tread softly, it’s not my area, I don’t own it’,” he said.

“But, I don’t feel this is everyone’s attitude. There are two second homes that back onto me and they’re doing a big extension on the house and building a great big shed right on my boundary.

“They’re perfectly entitled to do it, I’m sure, but I just think it would have been polite to say, ‘I hope you don’t mind but I’m going to put a shed here’. It’s the arrogance of it.”

Sign up to the Mirror’s travel newsletter for more holiday tips and updates.