Welsh leader doubles down on tourist tax despite outrage over Wales 'haemorrhaging' money
Eluned Morgan hit back at claims that the holiday home tax and looming tourist tax would devastate Wales.
Wales is moving ahead with plans to raise taxes on tourists in the country, despite a growing backlash.
Wales First Minister Eluned Morgan defended policies aimed at cutting the number of holiday homes in Wales, including a huge 200 percent council tax targeting holiday homes in some areas.
She told North Wales Live this week that the Welsh government was committed to bringing in a 'visitor levy' to raise extra money for facilities at tourism hotspots.
This comes after a shocking report from the Telegraph this weekend found that tourist hotspots in Wales are “haemorrhaging” money after the holiday home council tax rise.
According to the newspaper, coastal areas such as Tenby and Little Haven have been hit the hardest, with the number of second homeowners leaving Pembrokeshire tripling in the last year. In July, 135 second homes were on the market, compared to just 38 the previous year - a rise of 255 percent.
A multiple restaurant owner in Tenby, Matthew Ronowitz, said that such homeowners have helped the town become “a lot stronger and more prosperous” in recent decades.
He added that the council “doesn’t realise how much money these second homeowners bring to the county. They are treating them as a cash cow but not realising it’s forcing them to leave the area and hurt Tenby".
Conservative opposition councillor Aled Thomas in said that the Tenby council is making “villains” out of second homeowners and is “absolutely haemorrhaging” support for Tenby’s tourism industry.
Despite the backlash, Ms Morgan has doubled down on her plans, warning that doing nothing risked "ghost villages" where no one lived half the year.
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She said that the tourism industry was important to Wales but that protecting local communities and safeguarding the Welsh language came first.
Ms Morgan said: "Actually the thing that frustrates people more than anything is paying 40p to go to the loo on the beach.
"Visitors get furious about that. If have a tourism tax the local authority could subsidise that and take that away."
The Welsh First Minister said that the rise of holiday homes in Wales meant "local people can't afford to live in the communities where they were brought up".
She continued: "We can't ignore that, we have got to address that issue.
"It is complicated and I don't think anybody has got the entire answer to this, people all over the world are struggling with this.
"I recognise there are people who own holiday homes that won't be happy but I think our responsibility is to the people who live in these communities throughout the year and we need to make sure it is possible for their families to stay in communities, particularly in more sensitive linguistic areas where we need to protect the Welsh language."
