A letter slamming Pembrokeshire County Council’s consideration that second homes in Pembrokeshire could become subject to extra Council Tax was backed by members of Tenby Town Council this week.

Under the ‘Housing Act’, the Welsh Government is introducing measures to allow local authorities to increase council tax bills on second homes and empty properties by up to 100 per cent, and Pembrokeshire County Council recently carried out a consultation on the proposal of introducing a premium tax on second home owners.

Correspondence from one such owner, Martin Stephens, came before members of the town council on Tuesday night.

“The questionnaire survey presented by PCC on the second homes I feel was against people’s human rights. To me it sounds if you are not the right colour, you don’t speak Welsh, you are not able bodied, or you are too old, you should not have a second home. What relevance these questions have about who should have a second home and who should pay the proposed Premium Council Tax beats me,” wrote Mr. Stephens, who was also present at the meeting to address councillors personally.

“I have owned a second home in Tenby for 32 years and paid all the rates and council tax over those years, so why are we being victimised?” he said.

“We use the pubs, shops, businesses, and local decorators etc, and are as much involved in the community as anyone.

“I think that if 3,000 second home owners in Pembrokeshire get up and rally, there will be a legal challenge against this proposal, as this is financial persecution,” added Mr. Stephens, who told councillors that a copy of his letter had been sent to Pembrokeshire County Council.

Deputy Mayor, Clr. Mrs, Sue Lane, said that she agreed with the comments in Mr. Stephen’s letter and that she would support his views.

“Two hundred and thirty years ago Tenby nearly came to an end, as fishing and the like were finished, and it was second homes and tourism that kept the town going,” she told her colleagues.

“Second home owners come down throughout the year, support the town and we thrive on it!” she added, with Clr. Mrs. Christine Brown also stating that she supported Mr. Stephens’s letter.

Clr. Will Rossiter disagreed, though, and said that second home owners had led to “lights off” across properties in the town and less children playing on the beaches, comparing Tenby to a “ghost town” at times.

Clr. Laurence Blackhall said that, although there was a real need to provide housing opportunities for locals to live in the town and housing opportunities for the next generation, he was not entirely sure that this consultation on second homes was the correct resolution, and seemed to be more about PCC filling a hole in a budget elsewhere.

The majority of councillors agreed to support Mr. Stephens’s letter to the county council.