Leaders at Carmarthenshire Council are "determined to make the full use of additional powers" to control second homes and holiday lets, a cabinet member said. Cllr Alun Lenny said the authority was "very concerned about the damage that the unreasonable growth" in second homes was doing in the county, especially in coastal resorts like Llansteffan and rural communities like Cilycwm and Myddfai.
The Plaid Cymru cabinet member for resources said: "In my opinion it's completely unacceptable that people who are rich enough to afford a second home are denying young people from buying their first home in their own communities. We say a second home but it's a second house, in a way, because you can't call a house where somebody spends only a few weeks a year a home."
He said the rise in second home ownership was a problem in Cornwall, the Lake District and the north-east of England, as well as Wales, but that in Wales language was "a unique factor".
