Editor,

You placed an inaccurate headline over Simon Jenkins’ excellent letter about the council tax on second homes in Gwynedd (Letters, Cambrian News, 17 August). That headline was Triple tax on second homes is tragic. But, as the letter itself made clear, what is in prospect is not a tripling of the council tax on second homes as your headline indicated, but a tripling of the council tax premium, which is a sum payable by the owners of second homes in addition to the normal council tax amount.

The premium is currently 100 per cent of the normal council tax amount, so at present the owner of a second home in Gwynedd pays double the amount they would pay if that property were the main home.

With the prospective premium increase to 300 per cent next year, the owner of a second home in Gwynedd would be required to pay not three times, but four times the normal amount of council tax for that property.

The Welsh Government’s press release of 1 March regarding the prospective increase in the premium percentage stated: “The changes represent more steps taken to ensure people can find an affordable home in the place they have grown up.” However, I have neither seen nor heard any attempt by either the Welsh Government or its partner on this issue, Plaid Cymru, to explain how, exactly, that objective might be achieved through imposing increasingly swingeing council tax premiums on the owners of second homes. Do they expect or want those owners to sell their properties, but sell them only at a colossal loss to local people who wish to buy them? How realistic or fair is that?

I am reliably informed that in the 1960s Aberdyfi, which by then had become a “holiday village”, was the subject of an attempt to boost the local economy by extending the traditional holiday season. The method chosen was to build dozens of small houses specifically for use as holiday homes. They are mainly small two-bedroomed bungalows, and my second home is one of them. The council at that time must necessarily have been very heavily involved in, and approved, that whole process, and may well have initiated it themselves.

It is a sad state of affairs where the Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru clearly do not want me, and others in a situation similar to mine, to use their (very) small second homes for the purpose for which they were built.

By the way, I am Welsh.

Paul Thomas

Aberdyfi