Local Persons restriction seem a bit racist? Or am I overthinking?

[dartmoorgirl12]

We're house hunting on Dartmoor (clue's in the name!) at the moment, and we've seen a house with a Local Persons restriction on it. You have to live or work in the local or neighbouring parish for the previous five years. We actually qualify, but it got me thinking... Isn't it a bit weird that the "protected" group here are extremely likely to be white/broadly Christian. It just seems really exclusive for 2023. I do understand the idea that local communities should be protected, and that there is absolutely toxic housing pressure in Dartmoor at the moment. But ironically I live down here now because we got royally outpriced in the bit of London I grew up in. And there def doesn't seem to be any move to have Local Persons protections on various parts of London, which have been rapidly gentrified in recent times. I just thought it was interesting. Why is it that this group of white people get protected in this way?

But that's happened in London through immigration too? The new diversity is supposed to be a good thing there?

But presumably the local persons restriction is not just to make sure it’s not an Air BnB, but also to ensure it’s populated by someone who will actually live and work in the area and contribute to the economy, hence the working in the area criteria.
What is the Primary Residence criteria? If it’s just that it’s where you’re registered for tax purposes, paying full council tax etc how would you stop someone from doing that but then also buying a property in London and spending half the year or more there, therefore still not contributing to the local community?

It's to try and protect the area from people like you who come down from London with all your money and inflate the process so that locals can't afford to live there

Hate this attitude! You complain about being pricing out locals, and that’s exactly what’s happening to many Londoners. Often seems to be the case that city dwellers are expected to suck up this issue, and rural dwellers need to be protected from it. Double standards.

Rather than being rude to ex Londoners, maybe recognise that both sets of people are being screwed over by wider issues in the property market, which should be addressed by policy levers, but this does seem a bit insular.

I imagine different recruitment issues may be caused by restricting who can buy properties to anyone from the area for 5 years!

I’ve seen the same in a seaside town in Dorset, but only applying to ex council properties.
For all the reasons pps have stated, surely a good thing, and I’d have thought it’d be pretty obvious why.
IMO anyone seeing it as racist is looking for things to be offended by.

I had to triple check the date because I am having massive déjà vu here.

No it isn't racist

Exactly. The sheer amount of beautiful places here in Scotland totally dominated by London money makes me really, really angry. House prices go through the roof and ANY other people (race, creed, whatever) are priced out of the area. 90% of people who work and earn in these areas can't afford to buy there. It absolutely stinks.

It's got to the stage that every time I hear a certain English accent in many places I think "Not another fucking one with London money", which in itself is wrong. I should be welcoming to all, but it's getting increasingly difficult.

I wish we had that where I live - beautiful area on the coast. So many houses are now second homes, holiday cottages... the primary school has too few pupils and locals are being priced out.
No, it's not racist, it's protecting the community.

My sister lives in the Lake District and they have similar there. It's a really good idea.

But how is your good fortune of having been born there any fairer than people spending money (they will usually have worked for) to live or holiday there?

I understand it creates issues, but why should your community be protected from it when others (like London) aren't?

To be fair. Social housing has this kind of rule in place across most of the country. You have to have either; lived in the area already, have strong family ties, or work in the area. I don't see this as being much different. It's surely to ensure that people are able to stay close to their jobs and families FIRST before any additional housing stock (of which there is absolutely not enough, both social and private), is used.
I don't think it's remotely racist tbh

What I would consider racist is your presumption that there are no minorities in Dartmoor Currently....

Why do you think white people are protected?
If you say that you qualify and are not white., not sure how you have come to this conclusion

So people like me should have to rent forever at the mercy of greedy landlords?

Is it racist if its true?

[(www.citypopulation.de/en/uk/southwestengland/wards/west_devon/E05010555__dartmoor/]]

It's a bit like the unions battling for pay or conditions.

Someone has to start somewhere.

If London authorities want to copy the restrictions put in place, they are welcome to. Londoners are also welcome to pay a premium for a non-restricted property.

The picture is far larger than just house prices. My parents haven't been able to get a builder for months because rich incomers pay top prices for refurbing their second homes. My BIL can't get contractors to work on sites providing infrastructure for the same reason.

The people who don't like this are the over entitled Londoners who are the very cause of it. It's not a group of white people being protected because they're white, it's a group of local people being protected because they're local, I'm sorry if that is an inconvenience to you.

Surely you are being racist assuming everyone local is a white Christian.

there needs to be proper legislation to manage 2nd home ownership to reduce it gradually in a way that brings down house prices in areas that are popular for holidaymakers until they are back into line with local incomes.

each area could be assessed for what proportion of holiday homes it can reasonably sustain, and where the proportion is too high there could be a system of licences where all homes that are not the sole and only owner-occupied property of the person on the deeds, and lived in by them all year around, then a licence is required. licenses are expensive and are tied to a specific property in such a way that the designated holiday homes keep their value or even increase further in value as they become more rare. current holiday homes that are unsuccessful in obtaining a license will have to be sold and probably at a much lower cost than they were bought for as the pool of potential buyers won't have the silly amounts of money available, so some of the money from the licenses could go into a compensation scheme for those who lose a lot.

this would need to be introduced slowly so as to drip-feed the released properties into the market at a sensible rate rather than there being a flood of cheap houses which would destabilise the market more than necessary.

Racism? Well that's quite the stretch. That's never been my understanding of these schemes.

You can't get a builder anywhere atm.

The only reason we had trades in London was immigration and they all went home with Brexit/Covid.

Maybe you need to encourage incomers? 😆

You are still building in more beurocracy that needs to be managed and paid for. You are not considering the logistics. And lots of people don’t rent out their holiday home, they want it for themselves, it still prices locals out.

Who would it discriminate against except anyone who hasn't lived and worked in the area for five years? Isn't it a bit racist of the OP to assume that anyone of any race, faith, colour, sexuality, belief etc is barred from buying the property? All they have to do, like OP, is to have lived in the area for five years. They just have to do what OP has done: move to the area, get a job and live there for five years. As others have said, this is all about ensuring that entire villages aren't taken over by second-homers/ AirBnB.

Even if they are?

Non white people on Dartmoor? I'd imagine there a max of about 3.

As for primary residence, no that doesn't work. People can make all sorts of claims about that like my neighbour (SE Cornwall) whose house has been empty of humans (but is furnished) for the last 4 yrs but the Empty Homes Team can't touch him because he claims it's his primary residence. We gather he is overseas so it's probably a massive tax fiddle. No way he's living in it, not even one night a year! At least it's not an Air BnB thank god

Yep what @DarkOphelia says.
I have actually heard this being said by folks in London
Now it is happening where I grew up too

As others have said, it's to protect locals from being priced out. A few villages near us have been inundated with Londoners who still have their City jobs but now WFH, so keep their inflated wages but save on housing costs. The government were also planning to destroy many green spaces (in one case, a bloody nature reserve that is the only park in the vicinity for many people in that community and home to a lot of wildlife) and trying to buy people's homes in order to make way for HS2 before the monstrosity was scrapped. I do see why people are trying to give locals a chance first and foremost.