SOUTH Lakes MP Tim Farron has started a petition calling for planning law to be changed to stop family homes being turned into second homes and holiday lets.

In South Lakeland there has been a 32 per cent increase in the number of holiday lets in the district over the past year and a recent meeting of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority heard that 3,100 of the national park’s 12,000 properties were now holiday lets and second homes.

Mr Farron said: "I want to see holiday lets and second homes become different categories of planning use so that local councils have the power and resources to say when enough is enough.

"This should have happened years ago but the extreme circumstances brought about by the pandemic and the stamp duty holiday mean that now surely is the time for radical action."

The petition: https://www.southlakeslibdems.org.uk/secondhomes