December 1: Welcome move to curb rural second homes

WELL done George Osborne (The Yorkshire Post, November 30). I was just reading last week an article in a local paper saying 
that something should be 
done about second homes in 
our area.

I live in the Yorkshire Dales where the houses coming on the market are out of the reach of the young people who want to get on the property ladder. If this new policy helps them to do such a thing, then I support it wholeheartedly.

If people coming out of the big metropolitan areas looking for a second home, then another £5,000-£7,000 on the purchase price of a house is not going to stop them. It is not fair on the young men and women born and brought up in the Dales to see what could be their first home snatched away from them by some well-off couple further afield, and to whom money is no object.

If the present situation persists, we are going to have our villages full of houses lived in for only half a year in some cases and putting in jeopardy 
the livelihoods of those 
running pubs and small village shops.

It is the “know-how” of Dales people and farmers that are keeping this area such an attraction to those elsewhere.

A little gem.