Tax war brews over Britain’s charming little getaways by the sea

St Ives: buyers have flocked to Cornwall to purchase second homes. Photograph: Jason Batterham/Alamy

Cornwall councillor Steve Arthur is convinced that this year’s council budget will have a large hole in it because of tax-avoiding second homeowners.

Arthur, a local businessman who runs a holiday cottage firm in Perranporth on the north Cornish coast, expects many of the county’s second homeowners to nominate their children as council tax payers.