Coastal town dubbed Chelsea-on-Sea fear tourist tax on second home owners and holidaymakers will wipe out its future

Daily Mail​

18-05-2025

People living in a costal town, dubbed Chelsea-on-Sea, fear tourists taxes on second home owners and holiday makers threatens its future.
Salcombe in Devon has long been a popular bolthole for wealthy city dwellers looking for a seaside break.
However, business owners are worried taxes imposed by the council on second home owners and tourists will drive people away from visiting which could be detrimental for the town as it relies on tourism.
Some say they have already started to see the impact, reporting a much quieter Easter holiday season compared to years previous.
Owners of second-homes - which make up around 60 per cent of the properties in the picturesque town - are already charged double council tax.
Now they have also been hit with a differential parking scheme imposed by South Hams District Council.
Tourists are being charged up to £10 a day for parking, whereas locals can pay £5 for an annual permit which lets them use the town's car parks for £8 a day.
Owner of Salcombe Yawl café and Norman's Fishmonger, Beck Gordon, 51, said: 'It's a can of worms. I don't even know where to start.
'In an ideal world, we'd have far more locals living here than second homes and the kids would be able to afford to stay here and everything else, but in reality the town needs the tourism because it has become what it is and these businesses only survive because we've got tourism here.
'I've noticed that kind of second home dynamic is changing and there are more families on holiday than there are people with second homes.
'It's quieter generally. The parking's definitely an issue.
'It was only yesterday I had guys in here talking about parking charges and how it's really hard to make the machines work. It's all just reasons not to come, isn't it?'
She said day trippers, who often live more locally in areas such a Plymouth and Exeter, 'definitely don't come anymore' as they are 'put off by how hard it is to park and by how expensive it is to come'.
This is '100 per cent a worry' for her as their season is so short and they can only afford to stay open from April to October.
Ms Gordon added: 'We have no choice but to close because we can't pay someone to stand here when there is no tourism in the winter now.'
Despite Easter being less busy than usual, she said it was still 'okay' and credits the good weather for getting them through.
'For us, the minute the weather's not good, nobody wants to stand at the counter and get a takeaway,' she said.
But she is 'massively' worried about the future of the town and dwindling numbers.
Ms Gordon, who has lived locally for seven years, added: 'It's really hard to work out why it's changed because it's so complicated. But pre-Covid, it was almost twice as busy in summer. You couldn't walk or drive down the street; it was like a sea of people.
'We had two crazy seasons after Covid because obviously people couldn't go anywhere and since then, I would say we have been 30 or 40 per cent down.
'Businesses change really regularly. I've noticed this year a gallery has had to rent out one side of its unit. Jack Wills has just gone, which has been here forever and ever.
'We see shops change all the time because they can't survive.
'It's that frustration of, if everywhere stayed open then people would come, but you've got to get to that point. It's a no-win and we're not in a place where we can change it.'
She wants the council to do 'anything and everything' to aid tourism, such as promoting the park-and-ride scheme, which she said is a 'really good facility', or introducing free parking.
The park-and-ride scheme encourages people to park in designated locations outside of the town and then use public transport to travel in.
'It needs to be made as accessible and inviting as possible to keep the town alive,' she said.
Ms Gordon added: 'The message from the council needs to be: "We want you here, come", and we need to make it easier not harder to be here because the businesses won't survive if the barriers keep going up.'
Workers in the town also complain about the impact the increased parking charges has on employees who come from out of town.
Ms Gordon said: 'We can't park. They won't give us a business permit, for whatever reason - they say we don't meet the criteria.
'We can't afford to park in the car parks everyday and walk down. We end up juggling our vans around and diving out the door in a queue.
'Sometimes you get lucky and the parking guys don't come round for one or two days so you end up with maybe two parking tickets a week - but it's cheaper to pay for one or two parking tickets a week than it is to park in the car park, which is absolutely ridiculous.
'We probably pay anywhere between £25 and £50 a week in parking tickets whereas if we parked in the car park it would cost us £70.
'We have a WhatsApp group amongst the high street shops and there's a lot of chat on there about parking.'
A café manager, who asked to remain anonymous, said the parking increases also punished workers in the town.
She said: 'It's a difficult one. I think on the whole, they had a good Easter. I think the worst thing for us is staff and their parking. I pay £10.60 a day. I could walk from the top of the hill but I might have a heart attack and die.
'I think we are stung by parking. I think it's affecting workers in the town.
'Because I park before 8am, I have to go for 24-hour parking at Creek car park, which is ridiculous. Yes, I can buy a parking permit, but that's so much money and I only work three days a week.
'£120 of my wages is parking. I pay the cheaper one but it's still a lot of money.
'Easter was good. I think people still came. We wouldn't survive without tourists.
The manager does 'not support the parking increases' and believes people shouldn't be 'penalised' for owning a second home.
She said: 'I had a business here for 32 years. Without these people and without the holiday homes and without any of it, I wouldn't have had a business. We live in a tourism area - which is why I kind of suck up the parking.'
Another store owner wondered whether local tourists would be put off by the prices.
She said: 'There were several comments generally that the town wasn't as busy as normal.
'There are so many people with an awful lot of money that have properties in Salcombe, those increases probably wouldn't worry them too much but that doesn't include people visiting for the day, I don't know whether that would put them off.'
Meanwhile, businesses benefitting from the housing drive reported a good Easter.
Owner of the newly opened sandwich shop Mrs Cookies, Bonnie Kouki, 38, said: 'We had a pretty good Easter. We are such a new business, we have never done an Easter, so it was the unknown.
'We're tucked away as well but we were okay.'
Her shop was opened last year and provides cheaper meals which attracts builders who construct mansions for the wealthy.
Ms Kouki added: 'I'm local anyway so I understand how Salcombe works. We opened in October, so that was the hardest part of the year and we're still standing and have come out of that time with a profit.
'We didn't lose any money in those quieter periods. But we appeal to a lot of builders and there's a lot of building work going on and by keeping our prices a bit lower because we are tucked away, it really does help what we do.'
She hopes her business can attract locals back to the town to boost the tourism industry - not just the second home owners.
She said: 'Within Salcombe a lot of families won't venture into town because it is so expensive.
'I've got three children - to come out for lunch somewhere in town you're looking at £100.
'Trying to keep that reasonable and encourage locals in, I think that helps.
'I've grown up here and a lot of locals do avoid the town during the summer months especially because it does get so busy.
'I've been speaking to changeover cleaners and people that look after holiday homes and I can see there are gaps, whereas 10 years ago it would have been completely full.
'Even a lady this morning said she is seeing more short breaks rather than bookings but that is better for us as it brings in two lots of families.
'Although she's got bookings in, it's not the volume she would have had.'
Councillor Julian Brazil, Executive Lead for Community Services and Operations at South Hams District Council, said: 'We welcome all our visitors to the South Hams and our parking charges are still some of the cheapest places to park in the South of the country and within the South West.
'We'd like to do everything to help the tourism trade and we have kept our car parking charges as competitive as possible. Residents of the South Hams can benefit from our discounted Resident Parking Scheme.
'Many workers in Salcombe have benefited from our competitive parking permits which offer significantly lower long-term parking compared to our pay on the day rates.
'Be under no illusion, we don't want to increase prices, but this is the best choice for us under the circumstances we find ourselves in. Our prices have been frozen for four years, and now everyone who benefits from our public services are being asked to contribute, and that includes our visitors.
'The council always planned to review the scheme after the first six months and decide if any changes are needed.
'But clearly, if there is anything that is obviously wrong, which can always happen in a big change like this, then we will look to rectify that straight away.'