PEMBROKESHIRE’S Conservative councillors, and the majority of members of the Independent Pembrokeshire Group have voted to reduce the tax burden for second home owners in a vote at a meeting of Pembrokeshire County Council this week.

The Pembrokeshire cabinet, comprised of unaffiliated, Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru members put forward plans to retain the premium at the current rate of 200% – securing investment in new homes and supporting expenditure on front line public services.

Labour says that Pembrokeshire County Council already faces a financial black hole next year – with current estimates showing a funding shortfall of more than £30million. 

Earlier in the meeting the Pembrokeshire Conservatives led by Cllr Di Clements put forward a proposal to slash the premium by 100% which councillors were told would cut £5.2 million from next years budget.

In putting forward the case for continuing with a 200% premium, Cabinet Member for Finance, Cllr Josh Beynon said: This policy enables the council to raise funds that are then split between affordable housing and funding frontline services, in particular, those services that have been negatively impacted by the number of second homes, particularly, schools. In the 2024/25 budget, 6.5 million of those funds raised went to local schools, money that will not be available in the same numbers for the next year. This funding for 24/25 also included more money for public toilets, street cleansing and parks. Now we have a situation led by Cllr Huw Murphy that means the gap for the budget is £2.6 million larger than it was yesterday.’

Leader of the Labour Group, Cllr Paul Miller asked for evidence that, since the introduction of the premium, there had indeed been a negative impact on the tourism industry.   He said: Tourism is an important industry for Pembrokeshire and one we are of course keen to support. That said, given that by definition the accommodation units affected by this premium are either sporadically occupied second homes or holiday let’s which are empty at least half of the year, I’ve not yet heard an argument that clearly articulates the negative impact of this policy on the tourism sector. More often the concerns I hear from tourism operators are around the lack of labour supply, which is absolutely linked to housing supply, that concerns about this policy.

Cllr Marc Tierney said that he had sympathy for second home owners who had inherited a property and the council should continue to support them where possible, however he cautioned the opposition that they will need to take seriously discussions around the forthcoming council budget and be realistic that council tax rises were inevitable given the tax break given to second home owners.

Supported by the Pembrokeshire Conservatives, Cllr Huw Murphy on behalf of the Independent Group put forward a reduction in the second home premium to 150% voted through by a small margin.  Cllr Murphy strongly supported the introduction of the 200% premium which came into effect only 7 months ago.