Parties, brothels and drugs plague holiday let neighbours, say MPs

Raucous late-night stag and hen dos, pop-up brothels and drug dens are plaguing the neighbours of some short-term holiday lets, MPs have warned.

Problems in areas from Cornwall to Keswick have led to calls for new laws to licence holiday let landlords as well as a cap on numbers.

York MP Rachael Maskell said bad landlords can simply "shrug and walk away" when residents and families complain about noise and antisocial behaviour next to their homes.

"I've got horror stories from my constituents," the Labour MP said. "The nightmare starts every Friday evening when they hear the wheelie suitcases coming up the road."

Airbnb - seen as the market leader for short-term lets in the UK - introduced a global party ban in 2020 and said it had "zero tolerance for illegal activity" and backs a national register.

Maskell said she was not always aware of which companies were behind the properties causing problems in her constituency.

But she said the situation was so bad there needed to be "penalties in terms of removing the right to operate" from rogue landlords.

"In York we've had pop-up brothels and drug dens, but when one landlord was challenged he just basically shrugged his shoulders and walked off.

"There are big parties like stag and hen dos happening next door to family and older people's terraced homes, so residents are constantly on edge and miserable because every weekend it starts again.

"On some streets there are four or five short term lets and people feel they can't escape it - some are locking themselves in their houses because they don't feel safe, and others have moved away because they cant take it any more."

The Labour MP for York told a Westminster Hall debate on potential regulation of short-term lets that she already had a Private Members Bill drafted in 2022, which could be adopted by the Labour government.

About a dozen Labour MPs spoke in support of regulation, including Rachel Blake, called for a "compulsory registration scheme" capturing individual properties, with licenses given to "a named, verified and accountable individual".

The MP for Cities of London and Westminster said this would give police and councils the power to prosecute, adding "I simply do not believe that that would be overly onerous".

The lack of regulation is "blighting a host of communities", said East Thanet MP Polly Billington, due to the "increase in antisocial behaviour that follows from the proliferation of party flats".

MPs also claimed the sharp rise in short-term lets has distorted the housing market and "stripped out" communities.

There is currently no single source of data on short-term lettings in England, a House of Commons report states, but Airbnb is "widely regarded as the market leader" and was referenced repeatedly by MPs during the debate.

Blake highlighted how Airbnb was no longer a peer-to-peer marketplace but an "increasingly commercial" space, with nearly 28,000 short-term lets in her constituency.

"What started as a way to make some additional income from a spare room has now become a significant cause of the decline in the number of homes available for local residents," she said.

Truro and Falmouth MP Jayne Kirkham added "the private rental sector in Cornwall has all but collapsed" as a result of soaring numbers of whole properties being rented out for holiday lets.

In the Lake District town of Keswick there are 1,000 holiday lets in a population of 5,000, which local MP Markus Campbell-Savours said cause "so much harm" that a licensing and capping scheme "is the way forward".

Conservative housing spokesman David Simmonds said his party wanted a "light touch" register that would record the number of lets rather than introducing new enforcement powers, insisting this could be done via the planning system.

Junior housing minister Rushanara Ali said the government was "committed" to introducing a register of short-term lets - but stopped short of promising the licensing scheme demanded by Labour MPs in the debate.

Blake had suggested there was "an opportunity" for a licensing scheme to be included in the English Devolution Bill. The Ministry for Housing declined to comment further.

The Scottish Government introduced a licensing scheme for short-term lets, aimed at tackling antisocial behaviour and the housing crisis, in 2022 despite opponents branding it "unfair".

A spokeswoman for Airbnb said they had also been calling for a national register.

"Airbnb was the first platform to help enforce home sharing rules in London, and we have called on the government to introduce a national host registration system across England," she said.

"We have zero tolerance for illegal activity and parties, which are banned on Airbnb, and we take action on matters brought to our attention."

She added: "The root cause of housing challenges in the UK is a lack of housing supply to meet demand."