So it's obvious that Scottish football is far inferior to English. The question is, why?
Smaller pool, less money, inherent Scotch inferiority.
What would you like the answer to be?
I would like the answer to be the right one. I don't have a view here, I'm just interested people's thoughts.
Scotch pop = 5m English midlands pop = 10m says the internet. There's your answer, no more needed.
I'm not sure that's enough of an explanation. Ireland has a similar population and Scottish football is head and shoulders above Irish. Turkey has a bigger population than the UK but it's down at about the same level as Scotland. I reckon Cypriot football is a touch above Scotland's, and its population is about half that of Glasgow.
Competition drives improvements, there's not enough depth or competition in Scotland.
City are better because of Liverpool and vice-versa, Scottish football lacks that depth.
Partly, much more down to the money nowadays. Years ago it was eth obvious fact that they had much bigger pool to choose from due to population , now it is just MONEY. Same applies in Scotland , two teams have all the money.
By the way, if NZ is any guide, any move to PR will lead to various breakaway attempts by assorted gadflies and nutters, and a certain period of instability.
Over time though we could expect there to be five main parties represented (and assorted nationalists), to wit: Con, Lab, LD, Green and Reform.
Lab would alternate between Lab/Green and Lab/LD coalitions.
Con would alternate between Con/Ref and Con/LD coalitions.
One confounding factor is the SNP and their ability to hold Westminster to random for repeated Indy refs. This needs to be sorted one way or another before PR can really be “safe”.
You can make exactly the same argument about the LDs or indeed any other third//fourth party. I'm sure the LDs will seek to reverse Brexit and have another referendum, for instance, and as for Ref .... So that argument is moot - it's part and parcel of such a voting system.
The difference is, third parties in most polities don’t seek to dissolve the actual state.
It would be daft for Westminster to put itself in a position which strengthened those who literally wish its end.
You're confusing anarchists and autonomists.
No, I’m not.
I simply note that the SNP’s chief policy is to break up the UK.
If you are “the UK”, you’d want to avoid that.
That's to split the state - not dissolve it. Dissolve the union of 1707, yes. But that's a different thing.
Ignorance is breathtaking.
I didn't know you and I were total anarchists, not to mention subversives.*
*NB. This is a sarcastic reply, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know the difference between an independista and an anarcista.
I’m afraid you’re talking garbage.
Scottish independence means the end of the UK. Continue to make the case for independence, if you like, but don’t pretend that’s not the case.
That's an intensely Britnat attitude, or could be taken as one - that the state is the borders of 1707, sorry 1800, sorry 1922, sorry 1956 ...
Also, I don't recall (genuinely) if you were here for 2014 and the run up, but the Unionist attitude was emphatically that the UK would continue even if Scotland was independent.
So it's obvious that Scottish football is far inferior to English. The question is, why?
Smaller pool, less money, inherent Scotch inferiority.
What would you like the answer to be?
I would like the answer to be the right one. I don't have a view here, I'm just interested people's thoughts.
Scotch pop = 5m English midlands pop = 10m says the internet. There's your answer, no more needed.
I'm not sure that's enough of an explanation. Ireland has a similar population and Scottish football is head and shoulders above Irish. Turkey has a bigger population than the UK but it's down at about the same level as Scotland. I reckon Cypriot football is a touch above Scotland's, and its population is about half that of Glasgow.
Competition drives improvements, there's not enough depth or competition in Scotland.
City are better because of Liverpool and vice-versa, Scottish football lacks that depth.
I think this is a very important part of the answer, but there's a reductio here. Why the lack of competition? Is the playing base proportionally smaller? Is it the weather? Are R&C sucking all the oxygen out of the other teams? Is it geography?
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It also suppresses property development. If you buy a house and don't live in it as your main residence, then you have a 5k per year tax. No one is going to buy places and do refurbs etc with this tax issue, particularly not in low value areas where properties are difficult to sell or rent out.
I bought a disused property 12 years ago - not in Wales but somewhere similar - for next to nothing. Did it up and then rented it out as a holiday let. I was the first person in the village to do it, they thought I was mad... but then 5 years later many people followed and the village had a tourism boom.
I made a big effort with the local people but some people would never be reconciled to this happening, they would rather that the buildings all just fall down, assuming that there was some kind of moral obligation for the government to step in to provide them with free money and jobs.
If the problem is localised to a few areas, then the policy should be confined to those areas.
Yes, on consideration, and also in response to @YBarddCwsc, this is not going to work. This is going to destroy value.
Such measures should be hyper targeted to specific coastal areas where a clear affordability problem is identified.
The broader issue around what an effective economic strategy might look like in Wales is an interesting one. Given the population distribution, it can be really be re-framed as “What does economic growth look like for Greater Cardiff”?
The rest of the country must focus on tourism and high value agriculture.
It's worth a note that currently the surcharge is used variably, which I expect to still be the case. Also the Tourist Tax has not been mentioned.
I agree with targeting, but it should be driven locally.
So it's obvious that Scottish football is far inferior to English. The question is, why?
Smaller pool, less money, inherent Scotch inferiority.
What would you like the answer to be?
I would like the answer to be the right one. I don't have a view here, I'm just interested people's thoughts.
Scotch pop = 5m English midlands pop = 10m says the internet. There's your answer, no more needed.
I'm not sure that's enough of an explanation. Ireland has a similar population and Scottish football is head and shoulders above Irish. Turkey has a bigger population than the UK but it's down at about the same level as Scotland. I reckon Cypriot football is a touch above Scotland's, and its population is about half that of Glasgow.
Cypriot football my butt.
Actually, you might be right, but only recently. Cypriot football was relatively strong til about three years ago. I just looked at the UEFA coefficients and yes, they've slipped down in recent seasons.
Scotland had a dire spell whilst Rangers were out but now they are flying due to having both them and Celtic winning lots more ties in recent years. Cannot say I have heard much of cypriot football but never seen or heard of them in European competitions.
So it's obvious that Scottish football is far inferior to English. The question is, why?
Smaller pool, less money, inherent Scotch inferiority.
What would you like the answer to be?
I would like the answer to be the right one. I don't have a view here, I'm just interested people's thoughts.
Scotch pop = 5m English midlands pop = 10m says the internet. There's your answer, no more needed.
I'm not sure that's enough of an explanation. Ireland has a similar population and Scottish football is head and shoulders above Irish. Turkey has a bigger population than the UK but it's down at about the same level as Scotland. I reckon Cypriot football is a touch above Scotland's, and its population is about half that of Glasgow.
Gaelic fitba soaking up a lot of the player- and fan- base in IRE.
So it's obvious that Scottish football is far inferior to English. The question is, why?
It depends on what you want out of your football team. Trophies are clearly important to fans, but not the only reason to support. Teams up and down the Leagues get people paying to watch teams that never win anything, apart from ocassional division trophies, and often not many of those. It is intrinsic to the structure of both Leagues and Cups that most teams have virtually empty trophy cabinets.
It is possible to devise a system for a League with perpetual turnover at the top. The American Football Leagues do this via a draft system, so the bottom teams get preference for the players coming up from the College system. The equivalent here would be Norwich not being relegated and having both the money and right to buy in Haarland. Interesting maybe, but is it what we want?
Sorry, I simply meant in terms of relative attainment. I didn't mean anything about excitement or inclusivity, just success.
It is perfectly possible for a small population country dominated by a single city to excel in Football. Uruguay is perhaps the outstanding example, perhaps Senegal might be considered another, Denmark too, and more depending on criteria.
I think the key is enthusiastic participation at grass roots level for children, coupled by a strong coaching system and development of skills at an early age.
As I prepare to take a nice looooong walk into the first really nice, sunny and reasonably-warm day so far in Seattle during this merry month of May, I'm thinking of my friend who left town one week ago, on his bicycle heading toward New York.
As of last night he was halfway across Oregon, heading toward the Snake River Valley and the Grand Tetons. Yesterday he "only" covered 57 miles . . . but did over 5k feet in elevation. Large part was because he went up AND down then back up, but he's definitely on generally upward trajectory until he reaches the Continental Divide.
Just pull out a map of the United States and see just what a trip from sea to shining sea truly entails.
Some of the most illuminating books I ever read about US and Canadian history were about the transcontinental railroads. Like cyclists, they like the flat ... and the books gave such a sense of the great continent and its diversity.
Pierre Berton's trilogy on financing, politicking, warring and finally building the Canadian Pacific is still a great classic. As also captured in this great Gordon Lightfoot song:
Which is my preferred system. Polling card means no need for ID. If no polling card you need to prove who you are.
Ah, but you are not running the government.
An interesting experiment for a hot evening: design a Cabinet consisting only of PBers which we believe would actually work.
It depends what you think the Cabinet is for. Nadine Dorries has big bills to get through parliament but they were surely all devised by some anonymous SpAd or think tank; in interviews, she does not seem to know very much about the bills she is championing. Mo Mowlam complained that much the same was true under New Labour.
Or Home Secretary?
Boris Johnson is trying to shoehorn in the Scotland Yard chief who presided over the disastrous VIP child sex abuse inquiry as head of the National Crime Agency, Britain’s equivalent of the FBI.
So it's obvious that Scottish football is far inferior to English. The question is, why?
Smaller pool, less money, inherent Scotch inferiority.
What would you like the answer to be?
I would like the answer to be the right one. I don't have a view here, I'm just interested people's thoughts.
Scotch pop = 5m English midlands pop = 10m says the internet. There's your answer, no more needed.
I'm not sure that's enough of an explanation. Ireland has a similar population and Scottish football is head and shoulders above Irish. Turkey has a bigger population than the UK but it's down at about the same level as Scotland. I reckon Cypriot football is a touch above Scotland's, and its population is about half that of Glasgow.
Gaelic fitba soaking up a lot of the player- and fan- base in IRE.
You could add hurling. I was wondering if the Scottish equivalent, shinty/camanachd, was popular enough to make a difference to football, but I can't see it being that important?
So it's obvious that Scottish football is far inferior to English. The question is, why?
Smaller pool, less money, inherent Scotch inferiority.
What would you like the answer to be?
I would like the answer to be the right one. I don't have a view here, I'm just interested people's thoughts.
Scotch pop = 5m English midlands pop = 10m says the internet. There's your answer, no more needed.
I'm not sure that's enough of an explanation. Ireland has a similar population and Scottish football is head and shoulders above Irish. Turkey has a bigger population than the UK but it's down at about the same level as Scotland. I reckon Cypriot football is a touch above Scotland's, and its population is about half that of Glasgow.
By the way, if NZ is any guide, any move to PR will lead to various breakaway attempts by assorted gadflies and nutters, and a certain period of instability.
Over time though we could expect there to be five main parties represented (and assorted nationalists), to wit: Con, Lab, LD, Green and Reform.
Lab would alternate between Lab/Green and Lab/LD coalitions.
Con would alternate between Con/Ref and Con/LD coalitions.
One confounding factor is the SNP and their ability to hold Westminster to random for repeated Indy refs. This needs to be sorted one way or another before PR can really be “safe”.
You can make exactly the same argument about the LDs or indeed any other third//fourth party. I'm sure the LDs will seek to reverse Brexit and have another referendum, for instance, and as for Ref .... So that argument is moot - it's part and parcel of such a voting system.
The difference is, third parties in most polities don’t seek to dissolve the actual state.
It would be daft for Westminster to put itself in a position which strengthened those who literally wish its end.
You're confusing anarchists and autonomists.
No, I’m not.
I simply note that the SNP’s chief policy is to break up the UK.
If you are “the UK”, you’d want to avoid that.
That's to split the state - not dissolve it. Dissolve the union of 1707, yes. But that's a different thing.
Ignorance is breathtaking.
I didn't know you and I were total anarchists, not to mention subversives.*
*NB. This is a sarcastic reply, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know the difference between an independista and an anarcista.
I’m afraid you’re talking garbage.
Scottish independence means the end of the UK. Continue to make the case for independence, if you like, but don’t pretend that’s not the case.
That's an intensely Britnat attitude, or could be taken as one - that the state is the borders of 1707, sorry 1800, sorry 1922, sorry 1956 ...
Also, I don't recall (genuinely) if you were here for 2014 and the run up, but the Unionist attitude was emphatically that the UK would continue even if Scotland was independent.
It’s just a statement of fact.
The UK borders as constituted are as of 1922.
A loss of one the four nations ends the United Kingdom as currently constituted and understood.
I feel like Scot Nats like to pretend there’s no impact of independence. Keep the pound, keep the nukes, keep the pensions, keep the UK even.
Which is my preferred system. Polling card means no need for ID. If no polling card you need to prove who you are.
Ah, but you are not running the government.
An interesting experiment for a hot evening: design a Cabinet consisting only of PBers which we believe would actually work.
It depends what you think the Cabinet is for. Nadine Dorries has big bills to get through parliament but they were surely all devised by some anonymous SpAd or think tank; in interviews, she does not seem to know very much about the bills she is championing. Mo Mowlam complained that much the same was true under New Labour.
Or Home Secretary?
Boris Johnson is trying to shoehorn in the Scotland Yard chief who presided over the disastrous VIP child sex abuse inquiry as head of the National Crime Agency, Britain’s equivalent of the FBI.
As I prepare to take a nice looooong walk into the first really nice, sunny and reasonably-warm day so far in Seattle during this merry month of May, I'm thinking of my friend who left town one week ago, on his bicycle heading toward New York.
As of last night he was halfway across Oregon, heading toward the Snake River Valley and the Grand Tetons. Yesterday he "only" covered 57 miles . . . but did over 5k feet in elevation. Large part was because he went up AND down then back up, but he's definitely on generally upward trajectory until he reaches the Continental Divide.
Just pull out a map of the United States and see just what a trip from sea to shining sea truly entails.
Some of the most illuminating books I ever read about US and Canadian history were about the transcontinental railroads. Like cyclists, they like the flat ... and the books gave such a sense of the great continent and its diversity.
Pierre Berton's trilogy on financing, politicking, warring and finally building the Canadian Pacific is still a great classic. As also captured in this great Gordon Lightfoot song:
So it's obvious that Scottish football is far inferior to English. The question is, why?
Smaller pool, less money, inherent Scotch inferiority.
What would you like the answer to be?
I would like the answer to be the right one. I don't have a view here, I'm just interested people's thoughts.
Scotch pop = 5m English midlands pop = 10m says the internet. There's your answer, no more needed.
I'm not sure that's enough of an explanation. Ireland has a similar population and Scottish football is head and shoulders above Irish. Turkey has a bigger population than the UK but it's down at about the same level as Scotland. I reckon Cypriot football is a touch above Scotland's, and its population is about half that of Glasgow.
And yet in the 1994 WC, it was the Irish representing These Islands, and not Ingerland
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It also suppresses property development. If you buy a house and don't live in it as your main residence, then you have a 5k per year tax. No one is going to buy places and do refurbs etc with this tax issue, particularly not in low value areas where properties are difficult to sell or rent out.
I bought a disused property 12 years ago - not in Wales but somewhere similar - for next to nothing. Did it up and then rented it out as a holiday let. I was the first person in the village to do it, they thought I was mad... but then 5 years later many people followed and the village had a tourism boom.
I made a big effort with the local people but some people would never be reconciled to this happening, they would rather that the buildings all just fall down, assuming that there was some kind of moral obligation for the government to step in to provide them with free money and jobs.
If the problem is localised to a few areas, then the policy should be confined to those areas.
Yes, on consideration, and also in response to @YBarddCwsc, this is not going to work. This is going to destroy value.
Such measures should be hyper targeted to specific coastal areas where a clear affordability problem is identified.
The broader issue around what an effective economic strategy might look like in Wales is an interesting one. Given the population distribution, it can be really be re-framed as “What does economic growth look like for Greater Cardiff”?
The rest of the country must focus on tourism and high value agriculture.
A part of the problem is the belief that development must be stopped. But that all the good things expected from development must happen. Somehow.
I recall one particular arsehole who was (a) very proud of having been a pivotal member of the group who stopped Dyson expanding the factory in Wiltshire, and (b) very angry that Dyson then moved manufacturing aboard (keeping the design office in Wiltshire).
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
By the way, if NZ is any guide, any move to PR will lead to various breakaway attempts by assorted gadflies and nutters, and a certain period of instability.
Over time though we could expect there to be five main parties represented (and assorted nationalists), to wit: Con, Lab, LD, Green and Reform.
Lab would alternate between Lab/Green and Lab/LD coalitions.
Con would alternate between Con/Ref and Con/LD coalitions.
One confounding factor is the SNP and their ability to hold Westminster to random for repeated Indy refs. This needs to be sorted one way or another before PR can really be “safe”.
You can make exactly the same argument about the LDs or indeed any other third//fourth party. I'm sure the LDs will seek to reverse Brexit and have another referendum, for instance, and as for Ref .... So that argument is moot - it's part and parcel of such a voting system.
The difference is, third parties in most polities don’t seek to dissolve the actual state.
It would be daft for Westminster to put itself in a position which strengthened those who literally wish its end.
You're confusing anarchists and autonomists.
No, I’m not.
I simply note that the SNP’s chief policy is to break up the UK.
If you are “the UK”, you’d want to avoid that.
That's to split the state - not dissolve it. Dissolve the union of 1707, yes. But that's a different thing.
Ignorance is breathtaking.
I didn't know you and I were total anarchists, not to mention subversives.*
*NB. This is a sarcastic reply, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know the difference between an independista and an anarcista.
I’m afraid you’re talking garbage.
Scottish independence means the end of the UK. Continue to make the case for independence, if you like, but don’t pretend that’s not the case.
That's an intensely Britnat attitude, or could be taken as one - that the state is the borders of 1707, sorry 1800, sorry 1922, sorry 1956 ...
Also, I don't recall (genuinely) if you were here for 2014 and the run up, but the Unionist attitude was emphatically that the UK would continue even if Scotland was independent.
It’s just a statement of fact.
The UK borders as constituted are as of 1922.
A loss of one the four nations ends the United Kingdom as currently constituted and understood.
I feel like Scot Nats like to pretend there’s no impact of independence. Keep the pound, keep the nukes, keep the pensions, keep the UK even.
It’s cakery.
1955 (not 1956, sorry). You're forgetting Rockall (admittedly in dispute).
As for the rest - we will see. A lot of this stuff has been mediated through the intensely Tory media, shit duly stirred, just as before. The actual documents are beginning to come out.
Which is my preferred system. Polling card means no need for ID. If no polling card you need to prove who you are.
Ah, but you are not running the government.
An interesting experiment for a hot evening: design a Cabinet consisting only of PBers which we believe would actually work.
It depends what you think the Cabinet is for. Nadine Dorries has big bills to get through parliament but they were surely all devised by some anonymous SpAd or think tank; in interviews, she does not seem to know very much about the bills she is championing. Mo Mowlam complained that much the same was true under New Labour.
Or Home Secretary?
Boris Johnson is trying to shoehorn in the Scotland Yard chief who presided over the disastrous VIP child sex abuse inquiry as head of the National Crime Agency, Britain’s equivalent of the FBI.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Which is my preferred system. Polling card means no need for ID. If no polling card you need to prove who you are.
Ah, but you are not running the government.
An interesting experiment for a hot evening: design a Cabinet consisting only of PBers which we believe would actually work.
It depends what you think the Cabinet is for. Nadine Dorries has big bills to get through parliament but they were surely all devised by some anonymous SpAd or think tank; in interviews, she does not seem to know very much about the bills she is championing. Mo Mowlam complained that much the same was true under New Labour.
Or Home Secretary?
Boris Johnson is trying to shoehorn in the Scotland Yard chief who presided over the disastrous VIP child sex abuse inquiry as head of the National Crime Agency, Britain’s equivalent of the FBI.
By the way, if NZ is any guide, any move to PR will lead to various breakaway attempts by assorted gadflies and nutters, and a certain period of instability.
Over time though we could expect there to be five main parties represented (and assorted nationalists), to wit: Con, Lab, LD, Green and Reform.
Lab would alternate between Lab/Green and Lab/LD coalitions.
Con would alternate between Con/Ref and Con/LD coalitions.
One confounding factor is the SNP and their ability to hold Westminster to random for repeated Indy refs. This needs to be sorted one way or another before PR can really be “safe”.
You can make exactly the same argument about the LDs or indeed any other third//fourth party. I'm sure the LDs will seek to reverse Brexit and have another referendum, for instance, and as for Ref .... So that argument is moot - it's part and parcel of such a voting system.
The difference is, third parties in most polities don’t seek to dissolve the actual state.
It would be daft for Westminster to put itself in a position which strengthened those who literally wish its end.
You're confusing anarchists and autonomists.
No, I’m not.
I simply note that the SNP’s chief policy is to break up the UK.
If you are “the UK”, you’d want to avoid that.
That's to split the state - not dissolve it. Dissolve the union of 1707, yes. But that's a different thing.
Ignorance is breathtaking.
I didn't know you and I were total anarchists, not to mention subversives.*
*NB. This is a sarcastic reply, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know the difference between an independista and an anarcista.
I’m afraid you’re talking garbage.
Scottish independence means the end of the UK. Continue to make the case for independence, if you like, but don’t pretend that’s not the case.
That's an intensely Britnat attitude, or could be taken as one - that the state is the borders of 1707, sorry 1800, sorry 1922, sorry 1956 ...
Also, I don't recall (genuinely) if you were here for 2014 and the run up, but the Unionist attitude was emphatically that the UK would continue even if Scotland was independent.
It’s just a statement of fact.
The UK borders as constituted are as of 1922.
But the name "UK of GB and IRELAND" endured until 1927.
You literally have no passport? You NEVER travel abroad? Really?
17% of people don't. (In the US, it's 60%!) It's one of those things that people who have them can't imagine not having, like a TV or a bicycle, but which many people don't feel they need/ (I have a passport, but not a TV or a bike...)
To be fair to Americans, they have a lot more geography. When your country is that big it fulfils many of the reasons Brits go abroad (i.e. for sun, or snow).
And when they want a tropical holiday they go to Hawaii
You literally have no passport? You NEVER travel abroad? Really?
17% of people don't. (In the US, it's 60%!) It's one of those things that people who have them can't imagine not having, like a TV or a bicycle, but which many people don't feel they need/ (I have a passport, but not a TV or a bike...)
To be fair to Americans, they have a lot more geography. When your country is that big it fulfils many of the reasons Brits go abroad (i.e. for sun, or snow).
And when they want a tropical holiday they go to Hawaii
In addition, some of the caribbean islands do not require a passport for flights from the US.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
In fact I have only been to Cardiff once in the 57 years living here in North Wales and that was too much effort
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
In fact I have only been to Cardiff once in the 57 years living here in North Wales and that was too much effort
The geography of Wales militates against north / south connections.
An economic strategy for north Wales is based on linkages to Liverpool-Manchester.
The chart from the Times is interesting and having lived in several European countries it certainly looks correct from my experience .
UK supermarkets I think are also the best in terms of choice of produce . You can always find things like asparagus , mange tout and sugar snap peas any time of the year . And I’ve only just discovered tender stem broccoli since my return to the UK which I’m addicted to .
And you don’t have higher end supermarkets in France like Waitrose and M and S .
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
No connection then to these places being unpronoucable and a lack of investment?
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It also suppresses property development. If you buy a house and don't live in it as your main residence, then you have a 5k per year tax. No one is going to buy places and do refurbs etc with this tax issue, particularly not in low value areas where properties are difficult to sell or rent out.
I bought a disused property 12 years ago - not in Wales but somewhere similar - for next to nothing. Did it up and then rented it out as a holiday let. I was the first person in the village to do it, they thought I was mad... but then 5 years later many people followed and the village had a tourism boom.
I made a big effort with the local people but some people would never be reconciled to this happening, they would rather that the buildings all just fall down, assuming that there was some kind of moral obligation for the government to step in to provide them with free money and jobs.
If the problem is localised to a few areas, then the policy should be confined to those areas.
Yes, on consideration, and also in response to @YBarddCwsc, this is not going to work. This is going to destroy value.
Such measures should be hyper targeted to specific coastal areas where a clear affordability problem is identified.
The broader issue around what an effective economic strategy might look like in Wales is an interesting one. Given the population distribution, it can be really be re-framed as “What does economic growth look like for Greater Cardiff”?
The rest of the country must focus on tourism and high value agriculture.
It's worth a note that currently the surcharge is used variably, which I expect to still be the case. Also the Tourist Tax has not been mentioned.
I agree with targeting, but it should be driven locally.
I will be watching with interest.
The sad point to make is that this tax, and the ideas from Waters upthread connected to Preston, are beggar-my-neighbour policies. This is mostly taking money from retired English people. And Preston is mostly taking money from suppliers in nearby towns in other counties. They work as one-shot swindles, but the incentives are grotesquely perverse, and leave you like Italy with powerful constituencies who rely on ever-increasing subvention.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
As I prepare to take a nice looooong walk into the first really nice, sunny and reasonably-warm day so far in Seattle during this merry month of May, I'm thinking of my friend who left town one week ago, on his bicycle heading toward New York.
As of last night he was halfway across Oregon, heading toward the Snake River Valley and the Grand Tetons. Yesterday he "only" covered 57 miles . . . but did over 5k feet in elevation. Large part was because he went up AND down then back up, but he's definitely on generally upward trajectory until he reaches the Continental Divide.
Just pull out a map of the United States and see just what a trip from sea to shining sea truly entails.
Some of the most illuminating books I ever read about US and Canadian history were about the transcontinental railroads. Like cyclists, they like the flat ... and the books gave such a sense of the great continent and its diversity.
Pierre Berton's trilogy on financing, politicking, warring and finally building the Canadian Pacific is still a great classic. As also captured in this great Gordon Lightfoot song:
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
In fact I have only been to Cardiff once in the 57 years living here in North Wales and that was too much effort
The geography of Wales militates against north / south connections.
An economic strategy for north Wales is based on linkages to Liverpool-Manchester.
Indeed it links both ways in the North West.
Wrexham is far closer to Chester and the M56/M53 etc than to Cardiff . . . but equally when my family in the Wirral post birthday cards etc the stamp from the post office is bilingual despite being in England.
Anglesey not just is, but definitely feels much closer than London.
On topic, I don't think for one moment that changing the voting system to PR would guarantee a permanent left wing majority. Parties of the Right outpolled parties of the Left in each of the EU elections in 2004, 2009, and 2014, and were very close in 2019, all of them conducted under PR.
If you change the voting system, many people will just vote differently.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
In fact I have only been to Cardiff once in the 57 years living here in North Wales and that was too much effort
The geography of Wales militates against north / south connections.
An economic strategy for north Wales is based on linkages to Liverpool-Manchester.
Indeed it links both ways in the North West.
Wrexham is far closer to Chester and the M56/M53 etc than to Cardiff . . . but equally when my family in the Wirral post birthday cards etc the stamp from the post office is bilingual despite being in England.
Anglesey not just is, but definitely feels much closer than London.
You can make the argument that the whole of North Wales is effectively an exurb of a Liverpool-Manchester.
The chart from the Times is interesting and having lived in several European countries it certainly looks correct from my experience .
UK supermarkets I think are also the best in terms of choice of produce . You can always find things like asparagus , mange tout and sugar snap peas any time of the year . And I’ve only just discovered tender stem broccoli since my return to the UK which I’m addicted to .
And you don’t have higher end supermarkets in France like Waitrose and M and S .
Honestly from all the countries I've travelled to think uk supermarkets are the best in the world
Zahawi looking very tetchy being questioned about Sue Gray earlier. Not itself indicative of a lie, but it is not generally a good sign when politicians fall back on expressing annoyance at facing questions they don't like (and which they are answering 'I don't know, but it's not relevant' to, rather than irritated because the interviewer won't accept an answer).
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
I’m not.
As far as I can tell, all Welsh parties (and perhaps therefore the Welsh electorate) are pretty much uninterested in either economic growth or quality public services.
It’s a mystery to me, and requires something closer to an anthropological answer.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
In fact I have only been to Cardiff once in the 57 years living here in North Wales and that was too much effort
The geography of Wales militates against north / south connections.
An economic strategy for north Wales is based on linkages to Liverpool-Manchester.
Indeed it links both ways in the North West.
Wrexham is far closer to Chester and the M56/M53 etc than to Cardiff . . . but equally when my family in the Wirral post birthday cards etc the stamp from the post office is bilingual despite being in England.
Anglesey not just is, but definitely feels much closer than London.
You can make the argument that the whole of North Wales is effectively an exurb of a Liverpool-Manchester.
And that is the point and where the future for North Wales will always be
On topic, I don't think for one moment that changing the voting system to PR would guarantee a permanent left wing majority. Parties of the Right outpolled parties of the Left in each of the EU elections in 2004, 2009, and 2014, and were very close in 2019, all of them conducted under PR.
If you change the voting system, many people will just vote differently.
Well it would guarantee Ed Davey a permanant place in Government. I can't speak for everyone but if we dissect that then the worst leader ever of an unpopular party becomes kingmaker.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
I’m not.
As far as I can tell, all Welsh parties (and perhaps therefore the Welsh electorate) are pretty much uninterested in either economic growth or quality public services.
It’s a mystery to me, and requires something closer to an anthropological answer.
A massive pipeline full of free cash from Whitehall and English pensioners?
You literally have no passport? You NEVER travel abroad? Really?
17% of people don't. (In the US, it's 60%!) It's one of those things that people who have them can't imagine not having, like a TV or a bicycle, but which many people don't feel they need/ (I have a passport, but not a TV or a bike...)
To be fair to Americans, they have a lot more geography. When your country is that big it fulfils many of the reasons Brits go abroad (i.e. for sun, or snow).
And when they want a tropical holiday they go to Hawaii
In addition, some of the caribbean islands do not require a passport for flights from the US.
Neither does Mexico ,, this stuff about people in the USA being uninterested in world because don't have passport is rubbish, majority of people in UK only go abroad for weather not the culture
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
I’m not.
As far as I can tell, all Welsh parties (and perhaps therefore the Welsh electorate) are pretty much uninterested in either economic growth or quality public services.
It’s a mystery to me, and requires something closer to an anthropological answer.
A massive pipeline full of free cash from Whitehall and English pensioners?
Yes, and a dysfunctional ruling class; the “jobs-for-the-boyos” mafia.
So it's obvious that Scottish football is far inferior to English. The question is, why?
It depends on what you want out of your football team. Trophies are clearly important to fans, but not the only reason to support. Teams up and down the Leagues get people paying to watch teams that never win anything, apart from ocassional division trophies, and often not many of those. It is intrinsic to the structure of both Leagues and Cups that most teams have virtually empty trophy cabinets.
It is possible to devise a system for a League with perpetual turnover at the top. The American Football Leagues do this via a draft system, so the bottom teams get preference for the players coming up from the College system. The equivalent here would be Norwich not being relegated and having both the money and right to buy in Haarland. Interesting maybe, but is it what we want?
That's what the Super League scummers wanted, but just for the Euroelite.
Ironically the nfl is much more socialist than premier league Honestly can't understand the mentality of a 60 year old man supporting a team like Carlisle united
Peston reports that Sue Gray’s report *will* contain photos.
So, no photos then?
I was never really clear right from the start why some people think the inclusion of photos or not will be significant. This whole affair has rumbled on for months and those who are angry remain so, and those who are not likewise. Unless there's something interesting about some of the photos, like Boris is being propped upside down doing a keg stand, is there really going to be much reaction?
You literally have no passport? You NEVER travel abroad? Really?
17% of people don't. (In the US, it's 60%!) It's one of those things that people who have them can't imagine not having, like a TV or a bicycle, but which many people don't feel they need/ (I have a passport, but not a TV or a bike...)
To be fair to Americans, they have a lot more geography. When your country is that big it fulfils many of the reasons Brits go abroad (i.e. for sun, or snow).
And when they want a tropical holiday they go to Hawaii
In addition, some of the caribbean islands do not require a passport for flights from the US.
Neither does Mexico ,, this stuff about people in the USA being uninterested in world because don't have passport is rubbish, majority of people in UK only go abroad for weather not the culture
Speaking for my wife and myself who have been round the world many times, visiting all the bucket shop locations, including Antarctica your comment is not supported by all the fellow travellers we have met on these journeys who have travelled not just to broaden their horizons but enjoy the culture of the places visited, and yes we have even been in the Kremlin
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
I’m not.
As far as I can tell, all Welsh parties (and perhaps therefore the Welsh electorate) are pretty much uninterested in either economic growth or quality public services.
It’s a mystery to me, and requires something closer to an anthropological answer.
A massive pipeline full of free cash from Whitehall and English pensioners?
You literally have no passport? You NEVER travel abroad? Really?
17% of people don't. (In the US, it's 60%!) It's one of those things that people who have them can't imagine not having, like a TV or a bicycle, but which many people don't feel they need/ (I have a passport, but not a TV or a bike...)
To be fair to Americans, they have a lot more geography. When your country is that big it fulfils many of the reasons Brits go abroad (i.e. for sun, or snow).
And when they want a tropical holiday they go to Hawaii
In addition, some of the caribbean islands do not require a passport for flights from the US.
Neither does Mexico ,, this stuff about people in the USA being uninterested in world because don't have passport is rubbish, majority of people in UK only go abroad for weather not the culture
Speaking for my wife and myself who have been round the world many times, visiting all the bucket shop locations, including Antarctica your comment is not supported by all the fellow travellers we have met on these journeys who have travelled not just to broaden their horizons but enjoy the culture of the places visited, and yes we have even been in the Kremlin
Yes but people like you are the minority Most people jus want that week of sun in benidorm
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
Substituted, it works equally for England:
I know that under the Tories in England the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a English government that wants to tax the holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting the English Tories to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
I’m not.
As far as I can tell, all Welsh parties (and perhaps therefore the Welsh electorate) are pretty much uninterested in either economic growth or quality public services.
It’s a mystery to me, and requires something closer to an anthropological answer.
A massive pipeline full of free cash from Whitehall and English pensioners?
IMO a problem of a one party state.
A problem which Labour and PC plan to transmute into a cosy and perpetual duopoly.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
I’m not.
As far as I can tell, all Welsh parties (and perhaps therefore the Welsh electorate) are pretty much uninterested in either economic growth or quality public services.
It’s a mystery to me, and requires something closer to an anthropological answer.
A massive pipeline full of free cash from Whitehall and English pensioners?
So it's obvious that Scottish football is far inferior to English. The question is, why?
It depends on what you want out of your football team. Trophies are clearly important to fans, but not the only reason to support. Teams up and down the Leagues get people paying to watch teams that never win anything, apart from ocassional division trophies, and often not many of those. It is intrinsic to the structure of both Leagues and Cups that most teams have virtually empty trophy cabinets.
It is possible to devise a system for a League with perpetual turnover at the top. The American Football Leagues do this via a draft system, so the bottom teams get preference for the players coming up from the College system. The equivalent here would be Norwich not being relegated and having both the money and right to buy in Haarland. Interesting maybe, but is it what we want?
That's what the Super League scummers wanted, but just for the Euroelite.
Ironically the nfl is much more socialist than premier league Honestly can't understand the mentality of a 60 year old man supporting a team like Carlisle united
What? I mean, big picture-wise the appropriate advice to any adult who claims to support a football team is Get a life, but how do age, sex and Carlisle come in to it?
Peston reports that Sue Gray’s report *will* contain photos.
So, no photos then?
I was never really clear right from the start why some people think the inclusion of photos or not will be significant. This whole affair has rumbled on for months and those who are angry remain so, and those who are not likewise. Unless there's something interesting about some of the photos, like Boris is being propped upside down doing a keg stand, is there really going to be much reaction?
I agree. I think some are convinced that there is a killer photo of Johnson at a party that will finally bring him down. There isn’t. For what it’s worth I there are almost certainly party photos which will annoy the shit out of people, but Johnson is not in them. And probably, just have some have claimed that the mets investigation is a whitewash, including going so far as to invoke freemasonry, because the outcome was not to their taste, so the lack of a killer photo will be greeted by claims that it’s been suppressed.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
Substituted, it works equally for England:
I know that under the Tories in England the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a English government that wants to tax the holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting the English Tories to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
Replace “holiday industry” with “tradeable sector” and it works 100%, yes.
You literally have no passport? You NEVER travel abroad? Really?
17% of people don't. (In the US, it's 60%!) It's one of those things that people who have them can't imagine not having, like a TV or a bicycle, but which many people don't feel they need/ (I have a passport, but not a TV or a bike...)
To be fair to Americans, they have a lot more geography. When your country is that big it fulfils many of the reasons Brits go abroad (i.e. for sun, or snow).
And when they want a tropical holiday they go to Hawaii
In addition, some of the caribbean islands do not require a passport for flights from the US.
Neither does Mexico ,, this stuff about people in the USA being uninterested in world because don't have passport is rubbish, majority of people in UK only go abroad for weather not the culture
Speaking for my wife and myself who have been round the world many times, visiting all the bucket shop locations, including Antarctica your comment is not supported by all the fellow travellers we have met on these journeys who have travelled not just to broaden their horizons but enjoy the culture of the places visited, and yes we have even been in the Kremlin
Yes but people like you are the minority Most people jus want that week of sun in benidorm
Even Benidorm has culture
Most every holidaymaker will take in the culture of the places they visit wherever they are
On topic, I don't think for one moment that changing the voting system to PR would guarantee a permanent left wing majority. Parties of the Right outpolled parties of the Left in each of the EU elections in 2004, 2009, and 2014, and were very close in 2019, all of them conducted under PR.
If you change the voting system, many people will just vote differently.
Well it would guarantee Ed Davey a permanant place in Government. I can't speak for everyone but if we dissect that then the worst leader ever of an unpopular party becomes kingmaker.
I don't think it does. You are assuming nothing changes re the parties and as @Sean_F points out people would also vote differently. New parties would form and existing ones would split. I assume there would be a small liberal party and a separate bigger SDP made up from ex LDs and some Labour. I think the Tories would split also into two with a large centre right group and smaller more right wing group. I would probably be in the small liberal party.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
I’m not.
As far as I can tell, all Welsh parties (and perhaps therefore the Welsh electorate) are pretty much uninterested in either economic growth or quality public services.
It’s a mystery to me, and requires something closer to an anthropological answer.
A massive pipeline full of free cash from Whitehall and English pensioners?
IMO a problem of a one party state.
Well, you would get tinkering, although any plausible coalition right now involves either Labour or PC so changes would be marginal. However, no changes within Wales affect the fundamental economic forces of net Whitehall spend, agricultural subsidy, English retirement equity and Merseyside's economic fluctuations. The closest you can get is to try to shut down those channels (e.g. the punitive tax on practically all holiday homes), but then you need to replace the foregone windfall with productive economic activity.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
Substituted, it works equally for England:
I know that under the Tories in England the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a English government that wants to tax the holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting the English Tories to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
This weeks announcement for nuclear on Anglesey and Trawsfynydd together with improved train services in North Wales has obviously not registered
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
I’m not.
As far as I can tell, all Welsh parties (and perhaps therefore the Welsh electorate) are pretty much uninterested in either economic growth or quality public services.
It’s a mystery to me, and requires something closer to an anthropological answer.
Some years ago, a chap I knew was given the task of looking for a new factory site. Being diligent, he didn't just head to the Far East - he'd read about the new trend in the US and elsewhere to consider onshore locations.
So he went up North - looked around, made some enquiries. He was rather surprised that quite a bit of local government was quite hostile in the idea. Over a few beers a councillor explained that a big factory like his would upset the applecart locally - politically it was all good the way it was.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
Substituted, it works equally for England:
I know that under the Tories in England the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a English government that wants to tax the holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting the English Tories to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
This weeks announcement for nuclear on Anglesey and Trawsfynydd together with improved train services in North Wales has obviously not registered
Yeah, Johnson always makes lots of promises. Believe it when it actually happens.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
I’m not.
As far as I can tell, all Welsh parties (and perhaps therefore the Welsh electorate) are pretty much uninterested in either economic growth or quality public services.
It’s a mystery to me, and requires something closer to an anthropological answer.
Some years ago, a chap I knew was given the task of looking for a new factory site. Being diligent, he didn't just head to the Far East - he'd read about the new trend in the US and elsewhere to consider onshore locations.
So he went up North - looked around, made some enquiries. He was rather surprised that quite a bit of local government was quite hostile in the idea. Over a few beers a councillor explained that a big factory like his would upset the applecart locally - politically it was all good the way it was.
The factory was built in Malaysia, as usual.
Local authorities in the UK are pretty much the most underpowered in the world.
They also get much of their money by begging for funds from central government pots assigned to this or that social deprivation; you could argue it’s against their interest to encourage local economic growth.
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
I’m not.
As far as I can tell, all Welsh parties (and perhaps therefore the Welsh electorate) are pretty much uninterested in either economic growth or quality public services.
It’s a mystery to me, and requires something closer to an anthropological answer.
Some years ago, a chap I knew was given the task of looking for a new factory site. Being diligent, he didn't just head to the Far East - he'd read about the new trend in the US and elsewhere to consider onshore locations.
So he went up North - looked around, made some enquiries. He was rather surprised that quite a bit of local government was quite hostile in the idea. Over a few beers a councillor explained that a big factory like his would upset the applecart locally - politically it was all good the way it was.
The factory was built in Malaysia, as usual.
Local authorities in the UK are pretty much the most underpowered in the world.
They also get much of their money by begging for funds from central government pots assigned to this or that social deprivation; you could argue it’s against their interest to encourage local economic growth.
And if you are worried that development will cause an influx of people from the "wrong" socio-economic groups....
From the Times. I assume it excludes restaurant spending.
Bet we pay more for housing though….
That figure is because, as I understand the media, everyone lives on gravel and the off scourings of Foodbanks. The 11% all goes on Haribos and lard.
That table does correlate pretty well with the standard of domestic culinary experise. British people are eager consumers of easy to cook/eat junk. Just spy on peoples baskets at the supermarkets.
So it's obvious that Scottish football is far inferior to English. The question is, why?
It depends on what you want out of your football team. Trophies are clearly important to fans, but not the only reason to support. Teams up and down the Leagues get people paying to watch teams that never win anything, apart from ocassional division trophies, and often not many of those. It is intrinsic to the structure of both Leagues and Cups that most teams have virtually empty trophy cabinets.
It is possible to devise a system for a League with perpetual turnover at the top. The American Football Leagues do this via a draft system, so the bottom teams get preference for the players coming up from the College system. The equivalent here would be Norwich not being relegated and having both the money and right to buy in Haarland. Interesting maybe, but is it what we want?
That's what the Super League scummers wanted, but just for the Euroelite.
Ironically the nfl is much more socialist than premier league Honestly can't understand the mentality of a 60 year old man supporting a team like Carlisle united
Round here men aged between about 60 and about 120+ form the backbone of Carlisle United support base. As an Arsenal supporter in exile we have a good deal in common. Arsenal win all the games except those that actually matter, and Carlisle lose all the games including all those that actually matter, punctuated by a random sequence of away wins mid season that permits them to come about 20th.
They do have long memories however. 1974. Briefly top of Div 1. Jimmy Glass. Bloke called Knighton. Floods.
Re historic inflation, £1 worth the same in 1800 as 1914. Worth £122 in today's money
Measuring Worth does not altogether agree with you. In fact, they suggest in real terms the pound in 1800 was worth less in real terms, due to deflationary pressures.
Although it should be noted trying to measure relative value in a time of such extraordinarily rapid economic and social change is a very inexact science.
Peston reports that Sue Gray’s report *will* contain photos.
So, no photos then?
I was never really clear right from the start why some people think the inclusion of photos or not will be significant. This whole affair has rumbled on for months and those who are angry remain so, and those who are not likewise. Unless there's something interesting about some of the photos, like Boris is being propped upside down doing a keg stand, is there really going to be much reaction?
I agree. I think some are convinced that there is a killer photo of Johnson at a party that will finally bring him down. There isn’t. For what it’s worth I there are almost certainly party photos which will annoy the shit out of people, but Johnson is not in them. And probably, just have some have claimed that the mets investigation is a whitewash, including going so far as to invoke freemasonry, because the outcome was not to their taste, so the lack of a killer photo will be greeted by claims that it’s been suppressed.
The main culprits will be civil servants, not politicians. The report will highlight the contempt that senior civil servants have for their paymasters (us) and will not help their attempt to gain public sympathy against a cull of their numberrs.
So it's obvious that Scottish football is far inferior to English. The question is, why?
It depends on what you want out of your football team. Trophies are clearly important to fans, but not the only reason to support. Teams up and down the Leagues get people paying to watch teams that never win anything, apart from ocassional division trophies, and often not many of those. It is intrinsic to the structure of both Leagues and Cups that most teams have virtually empty trophy cabinets.
It is possible to devise a system for a League with perpetual turnover at the top. The American Football Leagues do this via a draft system, so the bottom teams get preference for the players coming up from the College system. The equivalent here would be Norwich not being relegated and having both the money and right to buy in Haarland. Interesting maybe, but is it what we want?
That's what the Super League scummers wanted, but just for the Euroelite.
Ironically the nfl is much more socialist than premier league Honestly can't understand the mentality of a 60 year old man supporting a team like Carlisle united
Round here men aged between about 60 and about 120+ form the backbone of Carlisle United support base. As an Arsenal supporter in exile we have a good deal in common. Arsenal win all the games except those that actually matter, and Carlisle lose all the games including all those that actually matter, punctuated by a random sequence of away wins mid season that permits them to come about 20th.
Youngsters can be quite fanatical too. One of the big pitch invasions last week was at Port Vale.
Tiverton and Honiton Conservatives pick Helen Hurford as their candidate for the by election. A local, she was born in Tiverton and has been a headteacher and run a Honiton based business
So it's obvious that Scottish football is far inferior to English. The question is, why?
It depends on what you want out of your football team. Trophies are clearly important to fans, but not the only reason to support. Teams up and down the Leagues get people paying to watch teams that never win anything, apart from ocassional division trophies, and often not many of those. It is intrinsic to the structure of both Leagues and Cups that most teams have virtually empty trophy cabinets.
It is possible to devise a system for a League with perpetual turnover at the top. The American Football Leagues do this via a draft system, so the bottom teams get preference for the players coming up from the College system. The equivalent here would be Norwich not being relegated and having both the money and right to buy in Haarland. Interesting maybe, but is it what we want?
That's what the Super League scummers wanted, but just for the Euroelite.
Ironically the nfl is much more socialist than premier league Honestly can't understand the mentality of a 60 year old man supporting a team like Carlisle united
Round here men aged between about 60 and about 120+ form the backbone of Carlisle United support base. As an Arsenal supporter in exile we have a good deal in common. Arsenal win all the games except those that actually matter, and Carlisle lose all the games including all those that actually matter, punctuated by a random sequence of away wins mid season that permits them to come about 20th.
Youngsters can be quite fanatical too. One of the big pitch invasions last week was at Port Vale.
Carlisle never do anything interesting enough to invade a pitch about. Not since Jimmy Glass's goal (1999).
Port Vale is Stoke. From our perspective that is an edgy, go getting, trend setting hot spot full of creative energy somewhere in the golden triangle near London.
Re historic inflation, £1 worth the same in 1800 as 1914. Worth £122 in today's money
Measuring Worth does not altogether agree with you. In fact, they suggest in real terms the pound in 1800 was worth less in real terms, due to deflationary pressures.
Although it should be noted trying to measure relative value in a time of such extraordinarily rapid economic and social change is a very inexact science.
Aye, time was, you could walk down to Beardmore, order 2 dreadnoughts for a pound. And get change.
Have just come up with solution to Wales economic development challenge.
Relocate Disney World and Disney international HQ to the Province from the Sunshine State.
Ordinarily this would NOT be within human ken HOWEVER thanks to strange outbreak of head-up-ass disease in Tallahassee, the Welsh have opportunity to take advantage of the Republican Party's War on Woke in general, and the De Santis-Disney conflict in particular.
Anyway, isn't Daffy really Welsh? Even though his Uncle Scrooge is obviously Scottish. However, Goofy is another Taffy, right? Of course, Mickey is quintessentially Hibernian - but at least he's musical.
By the way, if NZ is any guide, any move to PR will lead to various breakaway attempts by assorted gadflies and nutters, and a certain period of instability.
Over time though we could expect there to be five main parties represented (and assorted nationalists), to wit: Con, Lab, LD, Green and Reform.
Lab would alternate between Lab/Green and Lab/LD coalitions.
Con would alternate between Con/Ref and Con/LD coalitions.
One confounding factor is the SNP and their ability to hold Westminster to random for repeated Indy refs. This needs to be sorted one way or another before PR can really be “safe”.
You can make exactly the same argument about the LDs or indeed any other third//fourth party. I'm sure the LDs will seek to reverse Brexit and have another referendum, for instance, and as for Ref .... So that argument is moot - it's part and parcel of such a voting system.
The difference is, third parties in most polities don’t seek to dissolve the actual state.
It would be daft for Westminster to put itself in a position which strengthened those who literally wish its end.
You're confusing anarchists and autonomists.
No, I’m not.
I simply note that the SNP’s chief policy is to break up the UK.
If you are “the UK”, you’d want to avoid that.
That's to split the state - not dissolve it. Dissolve the union of 1707, yes. But that's a different thing.
Ignorance is breathtaking.
I didn't know you and I were total anarchists, not to mention subversives.*
*NB. This is a sarcastic reply, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know the difference between an independista and an anarcista.
I’m afraid you’re talking garbage.
Scottish independence means the end of the UK. Continue to make the case for independence, if you like, but don’t pretend that’s not the case.
That's an intensely Britnat attitude, or could be taken as one - that the state is the borders of 1707, sorry 1800, sorry 1922, sorry 1956 ...
Also, I don't recall (genuinely) if you were here for 2014 and the run up, but the Unionist attitude was emphatically that the UK would continue even if Scotland was independent.
It was indeed.
‘How dare you Nats suggest that the UK would not continue? The departure of you oat munching benefit junkies would be but a flesh wound.’
Have just come up with solution to Wales economic development challenge.
Relocate Disney World and Disney international HQ to the Province from the Sunshine State.
Ordinarily this would NOT be within human ken HOWEVER thanks to strange outbreak of head-up-ass disease in Tallahassee, the Welsh have opportunity to take advantage of the Republican Party's War on Woke in general, and the De Santis-Disney conflict in particular.
Anyway, isn't Daffy really Welsh? Even though his Uncle Scrooge is obviously Scottish. However, Goofy is another Taffy, right? Of course, Mickey is quintessentially Hibernian - but at least he's musical.
So it's obvious that Scottish football is far inferior to English. The question is, why?
It depends on what you want out of your football team. Trophies are clearly important to fans, but not the only reason to support. Teams up and down the Leagues get people paying to watch teams that never win anything, apart from ocassional division trophies, and often not many of those. It is intrinsic to the structure of both Leagues and Cups that most teams have virtually empty trophy cabinets.
It is possible to devise a system for a League with perpetual turnover at the top. The American Football Leagues do this via a draft system, so the bottom teams get preference for the players coming up from the College system. The equivalent here would be Norwich not being relegated and having both the money and right to buy in Haarland. Interesting maybe, but is it what we want?
That's what the Super League scummers wanted, but just for the Euroelite.
Ironically the nfl is much more socialist than premier league Honestly can't understand the mentality of a 60 year old man supporting a team like Carlisle united
Round here men aged between about 60 and about 120+ form the backbone of Carlisle United support base. As an Arsenal supporter in exile we have a good deal in common. Arsenal win all the games except those that actually matter, and Carlisle lose all the games including all those that actually matter, punctuated by a random sequence of away wins mid season that permits them to come about 20th.
Youngsters can be quite fanatical too. One of the big pitch invasions last week was at Port Vale.
Including violence against Swindon players, mainly Harry Mckirdy who left Vale after not really clicking. I understand the exuberance but I fear someone may get seriously hurt soon.
By the way, if NZ is any guide, any move to PR will lead to various breakaway attempts by assorted gadflies and nutters, and a certain period of instability.
Over time though we could expect there to be five main parties represented (and assorted nationalists), to wit: Con, Lab, LD, Green and Reform.
Lab would alternate between Lab/Green and Lab/LD coalitions.
Con would alternate between Con/Ref and Con/LD coalitions.
One confounding factor is the SNP and their ability to hold Westminster to random for repeated Indy refs. This needs to be sorted one way or another before PR can really be “safe”.
You can make exactly the same argument about the LDs or indeed any other third//fourth party. I'm sure the LDs will seek to reverse Brexit and have another referendum, for instance, and as for Ref .... So that argument is moot - it's part and parcel of such a voting system.
The difference is, third parties in most polities don’t seek to dissolve the actual state.
It would be daft for Westminster to put itself in a position which strengthened those who literally wish its end.
You're confusing anarchists and autonomists.
No, I’m not.
I simply note that the SNP’s chief policy is to break up the UK.
If you are “the UK”, you’d want to avoid that.
That's to split the state - not dissolve it. Dissolve the union of 1707, yes. But that's a different thing.
Ignorance is breathtaking.
I didn't know you and I were total anarchists, not to mention subversives.*
*NB. This is a sarcastic reply, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know the difference between an independista and an anarcista.
I’m afraid you’re talking garbage.
Scottish independence means the end of the UK. Continue to make the case for independence, if you like, but don’t pretend that’s not the case.
That's an intensely Britnat attitude, or could be taken as one - that the state is the borders of 1707, sorry 1800, sorry 1922, sorry 1956 ...
Also, I don't recall (genuinely) if you were here for 2014 and the run up, but the Unionist attitude was emphatically that the UK would continue even if Scotland was independent.
It was indeed.
‘How dare you Nats suggest that the UK would not continue? The departure of you oat munching benefit junkies would be but a flesh wound.’
As this government will continue to refuse an indyref2 it is not an issue anyway
"Interesting" proposals for second homes in Wales.
Council tax will up to 400% of the base level, and you can't register it as a business to avoid it unless it is available for guests 252 days a year, and actually occupied by paying guests for at least 182 days.
That CT surcharge is around £5k extra where Councils implement it for a Band D house.
We discussed wrt England that such proposals would be easy to dodge.
Will this work? Is 182 days occupancy common in Welsh holiday lets?
£5k extra looks big enough to me to deter at least ordinary 2nd home owners. Not such how much £7k of Council Tax is on a standard Welsh holiday let turnover.
They’re trying to distinguish between a genuine holiday let, and a second home that’s empty most of the time.
Yes I know.
The current threshold for occupancy to register it as a business is 70 days. Not sure what the availability criteria is.
I'm not an expert but I would have thought the normal occupancy rate for a genuine holiday let in Wales would be more like 140 days. In which case this bill will be a right bastard for anyone trying to run a letting agency. Plus the cleaning businesses, accountants, any tourism related stuff.
However, I wonder if they would make it applicable only to those people who don't live in Wales. That would solve the problem for quite a lot of genuine holiday lets.
So, general PB reaction across the piece seems to be "Hmmmm" rather than "Shock Horror!".
That's really quite interesting.
I can see there being a marginal effect on 'main dwelling' housing supply in Wales - perhaps 1% as a one-off - but no long term impact or noticeable impact on house prices, so there will be demands for more action within 2-3 years.
The effect is presumably in various hotspots like Pembrokeshire.
I think the 183 day rule is very onerous - presumably deliberately so - and will severely impair the “AirBnB” market.
So if you want to stay in Wales on holiday, you are going to have much less accommodation choice; and owning a second home is going to be much less appealing, too.
The impact SHOULD be suppressed housing prices in holiday hotspots, and therefore better affordability for locals. Perhaps fewer holiday “ghost towns”, too?
As I say upthread, I cautiously welcome this although I wonder whether something more targeted would be more useful.
There is a serious problem, especially with some of the pretty resorts on the coast (e.g., Aberdyfi, Abersoch, Solva, Tenby), with second home owners.
However, many of the areas of rural Wales are depopulating (much like Vermont or New Hampshire). There are plenty of semi-derelict, falling down, houses in the Welsh countryside. Plenty of decaying big houses as well, the local Plas.
People blame second-home owners for their sons and daughters moving away. But, in most of rural Wales, there are no jobs. So, people move away. So, there is depopulation and there are empty houses, falling to bits.
It is very clear that the Welsh Government has no idea how to bring jobs to Wales. Indeed they have admitted it-- here is Lee Waters:
"For 20 years we’ve pretended we know what we’re doing on the economy – and the truth is we don’t really know what we’re doing on the economy. Nobody knows what they’re doing on the economy.
“Everybody is making it up as we go along – and let’s just be honest about that. We’ve thrown all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way, and we’ve achieved static GDP over 20 years." (Lee Waters, MS for Llanelli)
Without providing jobs in the areas, they will continue to depopulate and there will be empty houses.
If they can't be sold to outsiders, then they will fall down.
Drakeford's proposals look to me to be a very blunt tool to tackle the problem of second home ownership.
The depopulation is not mainly due to second home ownership -- but I certainly agree there are big problems in some of the prettiest places and in the National Parks in which locals are priced out.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
But, 182 days occupancy looks really brutal -- I think it will kill some businesses.
It is actually quite hard to create good well paid jobs. You need to have productive innovative firms with ready access to customers. That's not easy to do, especially in geographically peripheral places like Wales (or indeed most of the UK outside of the South East). Governments can't just magic these jobs into existence. They can help by investing in infrastructure and skills, creating a business friendly environment and ensuring ready access to markets and customers. Unfortunately the government here is shit at most of that, especially with their Brexit shit fest.
I only partly agree.
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
I wouldn’t disagree with any of this. The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
Cardiff is more remote than London for us in North Wales
That’s not relevant to my point.
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
North Wales is far closer to Liverpool and Manchester and Airbus is a hugely successful North Wales business
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
I do understand the disconnect, see my other post.
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
I know that under labour in Wales the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a Welsh government that wants to tax the North Wales holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
Substituted, it works equally for England:
I know that under the Tories in England the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a English government that wants to tax the holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting the English Tories to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
This weeks announcement for nuclear on Anglesey and Trawsfynydd together with improved train services in North Wales has obviously not registered
I was corrected yesterday on here that Trawsfynydd mini nuke is a Drakeford white elephant.
By the way, if NZ is any guide, any move to PR will lead to various breakaway attempts by assorted gadflies and nutters, and a certain period of instability.
Over time though we could expect there to be five main parties represented (and assorted nationalists), to wit: Con, Lab, LD, Green and Reform.
Lab would alternate between Lab/Green and Lab/LD coalitions.
Con would alternate between Con/Ref and Con/LD coalitions.
One confounding factor is the SNP and their ability to hold Westminster to random for repeated Indy refs. This needs to be sorted one way or another before PR can really be “safe”.
You can make exactly the same argument about the LDs or indeed any other third//fourth party. I'm sure the LDs will seek to reverse Brexit and have another referendum, for instance, and as for Ref .... So that argument is moot - it's part and parcel of such a voting system.
The difference is, third parties in most polities don’t seek to dissolve the actual state.
It would be daft for Westminster to put itself in a position which strengthened those who literally wish its end.
You're confusing anarchists and autonomists.
No, I’m not.
I simply note that the SNP’s chief policy is to break up the UK.
If you are “the UK”, you’d want to avoid that.
That's to split the state - not dissolve it. Dissolve the union of 1707, yes. But that's a different thing.
Ignorance is breathtaking.
I didn't know you and I were total anarchists, not to mention subversives.*
*NB. This is a sarcastic reply, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know the difference between an independista and an anarcista.
I’m afraid you’re talking garbage.
Scottish independence means the end of the UK. Continue to make the case for independence, if you like, but don’t pretend that’s not the case.
That's an intensely Britnat attitude, or could be taken as one - that the state is the borders of 1707, sorry 1800, sorry 1922, sorry 1956 ...
Also, I don't recall (genuinely) if you were here for 2014 and the run up, but the Unionist attitude was emphatically that the UK would continue even if Scotland was independent.
It was indeed.
‘How dare you Nats suggest that the UK would not continue? The departure of you oat munching benefit junkies would be but a flesh wound.’
As this government will continue to refuse an indyref2 it is not an issue anyway
They won’t need to for as long as Sturgeon is in charge. When she gets her coveted UN job (in charge of world wokery or some such) she will be off, to be replaced by Angus Robertson, who won’t change anything.
Comments
Also, I don't recall (genuinely) if you were here for 2014 and the run up, but the Unionist attitude was emphatically that the UK would continue even if Scotland was independent.
I agree with targeting, but it should be driven locally.
I will be watching with interest.
I think the key is enthusiastic participation at grass roots level for children, coupled by a strong coaching system and development of skills at an early age.
Canadian Railroad Trilogy - Gordon Lightfoot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiSFZBDAH9Y
The UK borders as constituted are as of 1922.
A loss of one the four nations ends the United Kingdom as currently constituted and understood.
I feel like Scot Nats like to pretend there’s no impact of independence. Keep the pound, keep the nukes, keep the pensions, keep the UK even.
It’s cakery.
I recall one particular arsehole who was (a) very proud of having been a pivotal member of the group who stopped Dyson expanding the factory in Wiltshire, and (b) very angry that Dyson then moved manufacturing aboard (keeping the design office in Wiltshire).
West Wales has 4 Universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter or UTSD, Swansea).
They should be funding research expertise in these Universities that can spin off into companies.
I also think fast broadband is another thing the Welsh Government should invest in. As you hint at, it is perfectly possible to do a very well paid job from the middle of nowhere if the infrastructure is there.
Instead, Llafur has bought the loss-making Cardiff Airport for a hugely inflated price and sunk money into Aston Martin.
There is a 1960s feel to the Welsh Government's ideas on the economy. Not a 2020s feel.
As for the rest - we will see. A lot of this stuff has been mediated through the intensely Tory media, shit duly stirred, just as before. The actual documents are beginning to come out.
The problem is that only three people live in West Wales.
Grow Cardiff, and you effectively grow Wales.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDpDhofRoXA
They hide that amazingly well...
Bet we pay more for housing though….
It was claiming the partner of a journalist who has been regularly reporting on the partygate goings on had got and FPN for an event in partygate.
In fact I have only been to Cardiff once in the 57 years living here in North Wales and that was too much effort
Most of the Welsh population live in South East Wales, and any viable economic strategy for Wales needs to figure out how to promote the creation of high value add industries there.
We also know that innovation and economic growth happens in cities, via agglomeration effects.
There’s no reality in which Llandudno or Llandrindod Wells become the next “Silicon Valley”.
An economic strategy for north Wales is based on linkages to Liverpool-Manchester.
UK supermarkets I think are also the best in terms of choice of produce . You can always find things like asparagus , mange tout and sugar snap peas any time of the year . And I’ve only just discovered tender stem broccoli since my return to the UK which I’m addicted to .
And you don’t have higher end supermarkets in France like Waitrose and M and S .
Furthermore there are plans for a tidal barrier between Llandudno and Prestatyn and we have the 5th biggest windfarm in the word, which I am looking out on just now
Indeed if you have ever flown on an airbus aircraft, its wings will have been made here in North Wales
You really do not understand the disconnect between North Wales and Cardiff
It appears, however, that you don’t understand the economic geography of Wales as a whole.
Stand fast Craigellachie! (But do NOT forget the Pacific Scandal - toot! toot!)
Addendum - If you liked those Pierre Berton books, check out his on the Klondike Gold Rush
Wrexham is far closer to Chester and the M56/M53 etc than to Cardiff . . . but equally when my family in the Wirral post birthday cards etc the stamp from the post office is bilingual despite being in England.
Anglesey not just is, but definitely feels much closer than London.
If you change the voting system, many people will just vote differently.
If you are expecting Welsh labour to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
As far as I can tell, all Welsh parties (and perhaps therefore the Welsh electorate) are pretty much uninterested in either economic growth or quality public services.
It’s a mystery to me, and requires something closer to an anthropological answer.
We Must Prepare for Putin’s Worst Weapons
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/21/opinion/putin-nuclear-weapons.html
I know that under the Tories in England the NHS and education are in crisis, and we have a English government that wants to tax the holiday industry and also gerrymander the voting system
If you are expecting the English Tories to develop high tecs industries then you are in for a long wait
And probably, just have some have claimed that the mets investigation is a whitewash, including going so far as to invoke freemasonry, because the outcome was not to their taste, so the lack of a killer photo will be greeted by claims that it’s been suppressed.
Most every holidaymaker will take in the culture of the places they visit wherever they are
In quite a short space of time the Tories have conspired to create a high-tax, low-growth economy.
So he went up North - looked around, made some enquiries. He was rather surprised that quite a bit of local government was quite hostile in the idea. Over a few beers a councillor explained that a big factory like his would upset the applecart locally - politically it was all good the way it was.
The factory was built in Malaysia, as usual.
They also get much of their money by begging for funds from central government pots assigned to this or that social deprivation; you could argue it’s against their interest to encourage local economic growth.
They do have long memories however. 1974. Briefly top of Div 1. Jimmy Glass. Bloke called Knighton. Floods.
Although it should be noted trying to measure relative value in a time of such extraordinarily rapid economic and social change is a very inexact science.
{picks up pry bar and rips the top off a case of Château de Chasselas.... uncorks a bottle}
You lucky, lucky...
https://twitter.com/simonjamesjupp/status/1528436681879191556?s=20&t=bPTuvAnBFkHb8EHZOaR0qg
Port Vale is Stoke. From our perspective that is an edgy, go getting, trend setting hot spot full of creative energy somewhere in the golden triangle near London.
Relocate Disney World and Disney international HQ to the Province from the Sunshine State.
Ordinarily this would NOT be within human ken HOWEVER thanks to strange outbreak of head-up-ass disease in Tallahassee, the Welsh have opportunity to take advantage of the Republican Party's War on Woke in general, and the De Santis-Disney conflict in particular.
Anyway, isn't Daffy really Welsh? Even though his Uncle Scrooge is obviously Scottish. However, Goofy is another Taffy, right? Of course, Mickey is quintessentially Hibernian - but at least he's musical.
‘How dare you Nats suggest that the UK would not continue? The departure of you oat munching benefit junkies would be but a flesh wound.’
I understand the exuberance but I fear someone may get seriously hurt soon.
Just roond the corner from where Marlene was born as it happens.
https://youtu.be/Zq6vz8GHx-4