Average house prices in north Cornwall are 10 times local wages

A government-backed commission is suggesting that second home owners be charged extra tax, to help pay for more affordable housing in the countryside.

And commission chairman Elinor Goodman singled out Rock as an area that could be considered for the tax.

Second homes are blamed for pushing house prices beyond locals' reach.

North Cornwall is the least affordable rural local authority in England, with the average property costing �212,960 or 10 times the local average earnings.

The proposal for an "impact tax" from the 12-member independent Affordable Rural Housing Commission follows a six-month inquiry into the housing crisis in the countryside.

There should be some way of raising money which can be ploughed back into the community Commission chairman Elinor Goodman

The Commission also says 11,000 new affordable homes need to be built each year in market towns and villages to meet demand.

Ms Goodman said an impact tax could help in some of the most popular rural holiday destinations.

She said second homes across the country were not a problem, but became an issue in certain parts of Cornwall and the Lake District.

The commission is suggesting an impact tax which would be levied on second home owners, but only within quite small areas.

"So you wouldn't be talking about the whole of Cornwall, but you might be talking about a particular village like Rock or somewhere like that," said Ms Goodman.

'Dead villages'

"We've been told that having houses empty for long periods undermines the sustainability of those communities and people are not living there full time and not sending their children to the local schools and not using the local medical practice.

"So it makes it more likely those services will disappear.

"There should be some way of raising money which can be ploughed back into the community, either in the shape of more affordable housing or possibly to help local services."

Teresa Butchers, a member of the Commission and chief executive of the Devon and Cornwall Housing Group, said: "There are some areas in my part of the world, the coastal villages, where second home owners now outnumber the locals, and there you are beginning to get dead villages.

"So the beauty and vibrancy that the second home owners have bought into, they are destroying.