Our reaction to the 2024 spring budget

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has delivered the spring budget statement.

With plans announced to scrap tax breaks for short-term lets, we call on the government to apply the changes to all second homes. 

Commenting on the Chancellor’s budget statement, Roger Mortlock, CEO of CPRE, said:

‘The government’s plan to scrap tax breaks for short-term lets is a step in the right direction. But these changes should be applied to all second homes – a major cause of the rural housing affordability crisis. Air-BnB-style short-term lets have led to ghost towns and villages in some parts of the country, driving people out of the communities that depend on them. A secure and healthy home is a foundation for a decent life and one that many people in rural communities are being denied.  

‘Much more is needed to fix a crisis that is tearing the soul out of rural communities. We call on the government to redefine ‘affordable’ in line with local incomes, not market rates, set and deliver ambitious targets for new, genuinely affordable and social-rent rural housing, and urgently bring forward its new regulations on short-term lets.’