SECOND-HOME owners who are driving up property prices in rural areas should pay an extra tax to help the people they squeeze out of first-home ownership, a government-commissioned report will recommend next week.

It argues that those buying property in beauty spots for occasional use should pay a levy in addition to their second council tax to help local people onto the housing ladder.

The Affordable Rural Housing Commission (ARHC) will claim that city dwellers who buy holiday homes in areas such as Cornwall and the Lake District are contributing to an “acute shortage” of housing stock in rural communities.

In a further blow to families who dream of a country cottage, councils in regions popular with second-home owners are drawing up plans to purchase properties at market value as soon as they are put up for sale and convert them into social housing.

They claim that drastic measures are needed to stop locals being driven out by high prices and to prevent areas turning into ghost towns in the winter months.

The government has already allowed councils to reduce the council-tax discount on second homes from 50% to just 10%.

Estate agents estimate that 350,000 people now have a second home in England, almost 15% more than two years ago. If present trends continue, the number of second homes could hit 700,000 by 2016.

In villages such as Coniston, in the Lake District, almost half the properties are owned by people who visit only at weekends or for a few weeks in summer.

The ARHC report will stop short of specifying the shape and size of the proposed new tax, but it will urge ministers to give local authorities the flexibility to set their own levies.

Jim Knight, who was minister for rural communities until last week’s ministerial reshuffle, described second-home ownership as “a significant problem” but he played down reports of a potential doubling or trebling of council tax in the worst-hit areas.

“You would have to look at whether or not it would be justifiable or enforceable, and I think there would be problems on both counts,” he said.Knight, MP for South Dorset, added: “In my own area there are pockets of very significant second-home ownership, and it is a cause of acute problems in some areas where, effectively, communities only come alive at the weekends and not at all in winter.

“Some schools in my community are suffering very significant falls in their rolls — up to 30% in some cases — which is a serious situation.”

Demands for the introduction of a national register of second homes are expected to be rejected by ARHC on the basis that it would prove impractical.

The commission’s report will also acknowledge that second-home owners plough millions into the rural economy.

However, some councils claim this is not enough to offset the effect on house prices.

The Lake District National Park Authority is finalising plans to bar outsiders from buying any newly built property within its boundaries and from carrying out barn conversions.

Under the proposals new homes will carry “occupancy conditions” that will prevent their sale to people who have not lived in the area for at least three years or who are not moving to the area to take up employment.

A similar step has already been taken by authorities in the Peak District and is being considered by the Cairngorms National Park Authority in Scotland.

Rachel Bland, of the Lake District authority’s affordable housing unit, said: “We are looking at even more innovative schemes, such as buying stock on the open market and returning it to local use.”

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