When the District Council met in February 2024 and agreed to double the amount of Council Tax members were reminded ‘that one of the things we do need to do is to make sure the additional money that comes in is truly ring fenced for housing.

‘It may not take the sting out of the tail for those who will receive that extra premium,’ Cllr Mark Long continued, ‘but at least they’ll know it’s going where it should be going’.

His fellow councillor Samantha Dennis echoed his concerns, warning ‘as we know the money won’t entirely necessarily come to the district council and therefore won’t necessarily be spent on housing.’

She was making the point that most of the money being raised would end up in the coffers of the County Council, a fact Council Leader Julian Brazil was forced to concede.

‘Of course County can turn around and say no, we’re going to use it as we want’, he admitted. ‘There is nothing within the primary legislation that says they can’t do that.’

He also admitted that he had already spoken to the leadership at the County Council and he had received no assurances as to how the money would be used.

And while it is possible that some members might have been motivated to double the council tax on second home owners merely for their being rich enough to afford to own a second home, almost all were doing so in an attempt to address the housing crisis here in the South Hams.

So you would have thought it sensible for the District Council to have reached agreement with County before taking any decision and while there was still leverage to be had in any negotiation.

Needless to say that never happened and, by September, Cllr Nicky Hopwood was telling councillors she had ‘recently been given sight of a letter sent to all Council leaders in Devon by the leader of Devon County Council more or less saying that Devon County Council will not commit this extra money for affordable housing but use it to repair the highway and transport network.’

Consequently she wanted members to agree to a motion that ‘all the extra revenue raised by 200% Council Tax on Second Homes should stay within the South Hams’, only to discover Cllr Brazil had already agreed with other district, city and borough council leaders that the money should go in to a single pot, to be spent on housing across the County.

‘It would be very difficult for me personally now,’ admitted Cllr Brazil, ‘were I to renage on that by saying that actually, the South Hams, we’re going to say all the money raised is just spent in the South Hams.’

‘That’s the first time I’ve heard of that,’ Cllr Hopwood complained. ‘I didn’t know. I hadn’t been informed. And I don’t know how many other members hadn’t been informed… As a leader you should not, without speaking to the rest of the members of this council, agree such an important decision.’

And, inevitably, the outcome was as many councillors had feared, because at a meeting earlier this year the then Devon County Council leader James McInnes thanked: ‘the Districts very much for putting 200% on second homes and for the £14.9 million I think it is that’s coming to us in the Budget. But I have been clear since I’ve been leader back in May last year that I could not commit this council in to actually putting this money just in to housing projects.’

As for housing, ‘what we need to do is for the Combined Authority of Devon and Torbay to work with Homes England to actually bring real money in to Devon so we can actually build housing for local people.’

In other words trying to solve the housing crisis should be somebody else’s problem.

However South Hams District Council now has a new leader, and so does the County Council.

And as the new leader of the County Council Cllr Brazil is now in a position to ensure, as he once said, ‘in an ideal world I’d love all that money to be spent that we raise here in the South Hams to be spent just on the South Hams’.

But even if the world remains far from ideal perhaps he will now commit, although this time with the prior agreement of his fellow councillors, to all the extra revenue raised by the 200% Council Tax on Second Homes to be finally ring-fenced for housing.