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North Devon has launched a crackdown to stop rental homes from being turned into Airbnbs.
The council will begin a six-week public consultation on measures to ban houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) from being let out as holiday accommodation, with new rules set to be implemented by the end of the year.
Councillors said the move would help local residents who are being pushed out of their homes as landlords seek greater profits in the holiday let industry.
The Liberal Democrat-controlled council opted to amend existing rules on HMOs – a type of rental property popular with low-income families and students – because it is one of the few strategies they currently have to restrict holiday lets.
Paul Crabb, leader of the Conservative councillors in North Devon, said they had considered implementing a similar system as in St Ives, where new builds cannot be sold to second homeowners, but had concerns that this only pushes up the prices of existing properties.
He said the holiday let industry has been “so profitable” that residential lets were becoming “impossible to find”.
In the coastal village of Croyde, 61pc of properties are holiday lets.
Mr Crabb said: “Straight away your post office becomes unviable, your pub struggles in the winter, the community’s gone.”
He said it was the council’s first step in trying to control holiday lets, which they hope will help people find affordable accommodation.
Michael Gove, the Levelling Up Secretary, also announced plans earlier this year which would allow councils to go further, forcing holiday home owners to get planning permission to let their properties -- but councils are still waiting for the changes to take effect.
Graham Bell, a Liberal Democrat councillor in North Devon, said locals were being pushed out of their homes so that landlords could change the property to an Airbnb.
He said: “It falls on the council to then find them somewhere to live because there is no more rental accommodation for them. The council has a statutory duty to help ensure that people have somewhere to live.
“Often the council are having to pay above the rate for what would normally be holiday accommodation to house people who are unable to find somewhere to live because they’ve been pushed out so that the house that they were in is now holiday accommodation. It creates a bit of a vicious circle.”
A lack of rental homes means some families are staying in cramped caravan parks, with young children forced to do their homework outside in the winter months.
He said the tourism industry is also being hurt by the high level of holiday lets because businesses cannot find the staff needed to operate.
Mr Bell said holiday let owners were “making a high amount of profit but they are disabling the existing holiday industry. They’re also not paying into the economy as much as somebody else would.”
Some councillors like Mr Bell wanted to skip the public consultation and change the rules immediately, warning of a “fire sale” outcome in which landlords rush to switch their homes to Airbnbs before measures come into force.