To Suggest Highland Clearances 2.0?

[buddhasbelly]

I live in a part of rural Scotland that has experienced a huge rise in demand and a huge rise in house prices since about 6 months in to Covid.

Properties have been sold for 50% over asking price. New build prices are up an additional £20-30k on pre-pandemic prices. Yes the costs of timber rose but have since plummeted again. Homes are being advertised as "ideal Airbnb opportunity." 2nd homes are lying empty and those that are relocating are able to pay well over asking price.

But wages haven't risen in the area. Average saleries for the area are ~£22-£26k.

I don't blame people relocating, it helps the regional economy and they've worked hard to save and buy what could well be out of their reach in eg SE England.

But this isn't sustainable. Developers stating they are building more houses to ease the problem are just inflating their prices.

Communities are dying off in tourist hotspots where holiday homes are now the norm. Long term rentals in such areas are few and far between with houses being switched to holiday lets.

It doesn't look set to stop. Prices are predicted to rise 9% again this year.

Huge swathes of land are being bought up to be "rewilded" by companies looking to offset their carbon tax. One such company who spouts the UK prime minister's dad as investor has stated that sustainable property will be built on the land bought and they forsee 40% of their income being derived from this. Except it's property in the form of hunting lodges and high end Real Estate.

Employers in the area cannot find accommodation for their staff.

We have tried to buy but have accepted that this may no longer be an option. Wages don't keep up with the rise in house prices.

AIBU to suggest this is the Highland Clearances 2.0?

It i s very sad. I take it you are west coast. I am on the east. Anywhere beautiful is seeing an increase. But until recently most people would not have considered the Highlands. The NC500 is killing the place, is seen sharply on the west. Attracting people in droves the area cannot cope with. The highlands is a big money making opportunity at the moment. Soon whole villages will be holiday lets, because locals cannot afford to buy. There is literally nowhere else to live so they move away. There needs to be something in place that means you need to be a resident for a year in order to buy. They have them in other places.

Sorry yes. No one owns an area. People can move where they like.

What do you suggest as a solution? Rural areas have been undergoing this change for decades, accelerated now by wfh and other social changes.

I grew up on a farm in rural Scotland 40 years ago. Many of my friends were also from farms, or associated trades - mechanics, labourers, etc. Our local village had a shop, school, garage etc. There were about 30 kids in the schools.

Fast forward to today. Only a couple of the farms are still operational. In most cases the big stone farmhouses have been sold off to doctors, lawyers, lecturers, retirees from down South and the land is leased to big agribusiness, which bus in work gangs for the day then disappear so zero connection with the community. Or they have “diversified” into microbrewery, air bnb, antiques etc. The school has 3 pupils: few families can afford to live there now, those that do choose / can afford to send their kids private where they will “make the right connections”. The shop went years ago - everyone drives to Tesco ie everyone has a car. And house prices are stratospheric, pushed ever upwards by highly paid professional commuting from the cities and English retirees with huge amounts to spend.

Living in rural places these days, especially picturesque ones, is a lifestyle choice made by those who can afford it. There is a strong community in my old home village these days - but it’s made of retirees from elsewhere, family of the local landowner and his many children, professionals either commuting to the nearest city or wfh, enjoying the wildlife, the heritage, the big gardens and the quiet. Not farmers, no working families, no manual trades, no labourers.

Yes, yabvu. The Highland Clearances was genocide - the systematic attempted wipeout of a language, a culture and people. Please don’t belittle it.
I live on the West Coast, in our region we have seen no more of what you list than any other rural location now working from home is so much more widely available.

You're calling for a new wave of genocide? That's a really awful way of putting it.

@EishetChayil

The OP is saying that the 'removal' of locals, forced out by wealthier buyers and AirBNB lettings is like a second Highland Clearance. I don't think she is proposing that the wholesale slaughter of retired bank managers, English Good-Lifers and highly-paid commuting /wfh professionals is an appropriate response to rocketing property prices in the Highlands.

We have an enormous housing crisis in this country. Empty houses, second homes, holiday lets.....yet homelessness , unaffordable housing etc its not just your area. There seems to be little political will to solve it...and it will only get worse.

But I feel your comparison is unhelpful!

I know what you mean OP and agree - see also Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and NY Moors, Snowdonia, Pembrokeshire, North Norfolk, Devon and Cornwall.

Scottish government have been mumbling about banning Airbnb in Edinburgh - between that and student accommodation and rocketing property prices your average Joe doesn't get a look in. DH works with someone who's wife owns 11 flats in Edinburgh rented out on Airbnb .

NC500 is a victim of it's own success. The infrastructure is wholly inadequate for the numbers of people using it.

Second homes especially should be taxed up the wazoo.

Agreed. As someone on a v low income, I was looking at a fisherman’s cottage in Macduff 2 years ago for around £65k. Then covid hit. That’s pocket change for Londoners. I hate Airbnb and they way it’s hollowing out communities- oh except for cleaning staff, the new “laird” needs a minimum wage cleaner.

Was going to say roughly what @crowdfundingforcake said. I'm in Edinburgh and the council are tackling Airbnb with a little success. I imagine at the least it's off-putting for investors that this is the direction of travel. It might need the local community to campaign for restrictions on Airbnb and second homes.

A big part of the problem is that so few people work 'in' these rural places any more. Family farms are steadily declining. Farming itself is either going down the intensive route (more machinery, fewer people) or diversifying (breweries, AirBNB, kennels, etc). Tourism is by far the biggest employer of people in rural areas - which brings its own problems, as you note - low paid, unreliable work and massive diversion of resources to visitors. Working for public services was always seen as a good option for educated people living in rural areas - teachers, social workers, planners, managers, doctors, nurses - but these jobs are not increasing overall and are being centralised for reasons of cost. People generally work in towns and cities these days - so the more bonnie rural areas are all about 'lifestyles' and those that can afford them.

What is the countryside for, these days? A nice day out? A holiday in a beautiful place? A retirement with a big garden, lovely surroundings, active (incomer) community? A rural lifestyle maintained by a high-paying job based in a city which is either commuted to or wfh?

I'm not against rewilding as a concept. We've paid farmers over the odds to produce (and not produce) excess food up till now: why not pay them to produce 'nature' and biodiversity instead.

Tell me about it. I live in Cornwall and the problem is dire. Local councils should have and exercise more powers (banning AirBnB, restricting second homes) to prevent communities dying off. I don't blame individuals, LLs etc. I blame our rubbish housing market/system.

[quote workwoes123]@EishetChayil

The OP is saying that the 'removal' of locals, forced out by wealthier buyers and AirBNB lettings is like a second Highland Clearance. I don't think she is proposing that the wholesale slaughter of retired bank managers, English Good-Lifers and highly-paid commuting /wfh professionals is an appropriate response to rocketing property prices in the Highlands.[/quote]
English Good-lifers? We just had to put the English in there 🤷🏻‍♀️( I am Scottish btw) .
In my home rural village I often find it’s the ‘in-comers’ from where-ever they may come, who bring in new businesses, work on the local resilience committees, etc.
Yes the lack of affordable housing , across the UK, is a huge issue, but let’s keep the xenophobia out of it.

Did anyone see the Simon Reeve programme about the Lake District on a few weeks ago. They were bussing cleaning staff from Workington/Whitehaven on the west coast to cleaning jobs at Langdale, an hour and a half each way. Because A: someone on a cleaner's wage can't afford to live within an hour of Langdale and B: there aren't enough permanent residents in the area to make up a workforce.

Also covered was the fact that many LD villages are over 80% holiday homes/let's. Wrong on every level.

Surely you reach a saturation point with Airbnb. And I would suspect that this is what happened in the Med etc 50 years ago when everyone wanted a holiday abroad.
Not sure what can be done. People don't want to work on farms as the pay is too low.
We are being swamped with windfarms and conifer forests where I am which will scupper the tourist industry in the near future - no one cares. Only the large investment companies who invest in them which we subsidise with our taxes and high electric bills.

Exact same issue in the Lake District and also Cornwall which has suffered like this for years. Cornwall was the poorest region in Europe at one stage - could still be. Simon Reeve's documentaries about both of these areas explains the problem perfectly.

@WhiteXmas21

You are right, I take that back. The Good Life-ers around my parents are from everywhere: England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany. Nonetheless, it's happening: as the OP says people who sell up in the SE England (whatever their nationality) can afford to buy a large house with a big garden in a small Scottish village, and they do. In droves.

You are also correct that incomers often bring a new life to rural areas. But they bring their own values, lifestyles and preoccupations with them, and it changes the nature of the place. There used to be an active WRI, a Youth Club (run by the dads), lots of school events that brought the community together, a local shop (used by people who didn't have a car) in my parents village. All gone. Now there is a Heritage Group, a Nature Observation Group and a Wine Club. And a very large antiques centre.

The title was in reflection to a modern day clearances, landlords, both those from the region and incoming landlords are finding homes are more valuable as airbnb, or as second home investments.

I was reading my DH's great (x4) grandfather's testimony to the Napier Commission; the parallels in land value depending on its use make for depressing reading.

There shouldn't be a case of "you can't move here" ; it's certainly not what I want, incoming people help to build the regional economy. But I do feel there should be some government intervention into the number of second homes and holiday let's. I know some communities are fighting back, with the odd alliance putting stipulations into conditions of purchase with houses but it feels a bit too little to late.

Last summer we went to the Cairngorms (beautiful) and stayed in a mobile home. The local shop was an amazing deli with all kinds of gourmet food we can't even buy in Waitrose at home in the sw - you could tell there were plenty of Airbnb's and second homes! Most accents were Scottish but lowland Scottish rather than local, Edinburgh at a guess. Talks to multiple people who lived there year round now and wfh, we quite fancy there when we retire

I'll need to watch the Simon Reeves programme.

And apologies this wasn't about anyone moving in from England; rather, about 2nd home buyers and airbnb owners both within and out with this region. I'd said eg SE England as aware that's probably the largest gap from a house price here to anywhere else in the UK, reflecting a home from there could buy several airbnb properties here.

People can move where they like - I don't have a problem with "incomers" - they free up a house elsewhere.

But I do object to second home and holiday home ownership. On the one hand we are told we need lots of new houses built, on the other hand it's fine to have more than one house. It isn't. There is the odd holiday cottage which isn't permitted for to be used for residential use - that's fine. But not when a house which has been lived in for decades becomes a holiday let or someone's second home that they only come to three times a year.

My sisters friend works in forestry and agriculture. She says we must be thankful for the Scottish weather and for the midge, without these the Highlands would look like Benidorm.

There was an article once about a local lady in Cornwall, just retired, who bought an apartment in a fairly large block, hoping to meet other residents and be part of a community. She was the only permanent resident in this block, every other apartment was either a second home which was occupied about 2 weeks a year and a few weekends or a holiday let.

Many of the younger Cornish population cannot afford housing there and have to move. Second homes have driven prices sky high.

But I do feel there should be some government intervention into the number of second homes and holiday let's.

It's happening - think it goes before the Scottish Parliament next month.

www.gov.scot/publications/short-term-lets-scotland-licensing-scheme-part-1-guidance-hosts-operators/pages/2/

I'm not sure it's going to do what they want it to do, to be honest, but they're trying - I'm speaking here as someone who lives on the NC500 route and owns two holiday lets.

@MorrisZapp yes it's not quite the same when you're being pelted with wind and rain and then being eaten alive, doesn't quite have the same appeal 😂