Rural families are being deprived of housing by a 1,000% surge in the number of short-term lets and holiday properties, according to countryside charity CPRE.

The huge increase was revealed in a survey by the charity – formerly the Campaign to Protect Rural England – which looked at property tenures over a five-year period between 2016 and 2021.

It showed that 148,000 homes, stood empty for large parts of the year.  Most of them were in staycation hotspots, a CPRE spokesperson added.

“Our data shows startling figures in locations such as Cornwall, Devon, South Lakeland and Northumberland,” the spokesperson said.

In the survey of property listings between 2016 and 2021, South Lakeland saw a 1,231% increase in short-term lets.

About half the families on waiting lists for social housing in the area could be homed if the holiday rentals were available on the property market, the spokesperson suggested.

In Cornwall, where short-term lets grew by 661% to 15,000 over the five-year period, all of the 15,000 waiting families could be housed.

Crispin Truman, CPRE chief executive said there has been a massive shift into an unregulated short-term rentals market that didn’t exist six years ago.

It was supposed to be the summer to rekindle the joy of the great British holiday, with demand for 2022 domestic breaks already rising. But hospitality staff in many tourist hotspots beg to differ, saying they have suffered a barrage of complaints from “impatient” visitors and “Tripadvisor warriors”.

Restaurant and hotel owners said visitors were regularly complaining about slow service amid high demand, and that some had seemingly struggled to adapt to the change from their usual all-inclusive getaway abroad.

Susan Briggs, the director of the Tourism Network in North Yorkshire, said businesses had reported an increase in grumpy customers who were “more demanding and even abusive when they can’t get a table in a restaurant or have unrealistic expectations of service”.

With the pandemic scrambling travel plans, many of us are staying put this summer. But can your own house ever be as restful a vacation setting as flopping on a sunlounger?

The lockdown shackles are off. The great half-term getaway began with predictable traffic chaos on Friday night as Britons finally got the chance to escape to the seaside.

But some people living in the resorts are being forced to head in the opposite direction along the clogged-up roads, priced out of their homes by a coastal housing crisis that has been turbocharged by the pandemic.

Landlords in popular seaside destinations are favouring holidaymakers over long-term tenants, leading to a catastrophic shortage of homes. Cornwall currently has more than 10,290 active Airbnb listings. Yet, in comparison, the housing website Rightmove had only 62 properties available to rent across the whole county on Friday evening. 

Renters in seaside towns are facing unprecedented competition, with some landlords in Cornwall, Kent and Norfolk given the choice between up to 80 prospective tenants chasing a dwindling number of properties.

After months of being cooped up at home, Britons aren’t looking for a popular beach break in Cornwall or lively city escape in London to celebrate the end of lockdown. In fact, research from Airbnb has revealed the 10 trending UK locations for a summer staycation and the list will surprise you.

When it comes to their first holiday out of lockdown, Brits have been searching for the town of St Clears in Carmarthenshire for a self-catering break.

With Welsh self-catering stays already allowed for people living in Wales, the friendly town, which is home to craft centres, a celebrated butcher and local shops, could be the ideal alternative to visiting popular spots, like nearby Tenby, Llandudno or St David’s this summer.

The ancient Forest of the Dean in Gloucestershire has seen the second biggest increase in searches by Brits, followed by pretty village Clovelly in Devon, Bosham in Sussex and Primrose Valley in Yorkshire.

Airbnb’s top 10 trending UK locations for summer 2021

St Clears, Carmarthenshire 

Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire 

Clovelly, Devon 

Bosham, Sussex 

Primrose Valley, Yorkshire 

Mullion, Cornwall 

Cawsand, Cornwall 

Noss Mayo, Devon 

Saunton, Devon 

East Wittering, Sussex 

“The “staycation” campaign will offer incentives for Britons choosing to holiday in the UK during the Olympic Games and Golden Jubilee celebrations.

To mark the Olympic year, discounts of 20.12 percent will be offered on thousands of hotels, restaurants, attractions and other goods and services.

Tourists will be able to take advantage of the discount by using a dedicated website before the end of the Paralympics on September 9 to make bookings for this year and 2013.

More than three million hotel rooms are already lined up under the project, which is being backed by a range of companies including Butlins.”

I have never been convinced by the long term benefits of tourism as a real driver of sustainable economic development. It seems to me that in some rural places it is where economic development starts and stops unimaginatively and is a proxy for the harder thinking required to rise to the challenge of creating sustainable rural economies. I am sure  this will draw me some flak – but I cant help thinking what will happen next year when the music stops and we return to a non olympic/non jubilee “business as usual” scenario.