MP highlights 'hollowed out' Devon communities

Maiden speech puts county's problems in the spotlight

A Devon MP has used her maiden speech in the House of Commons to highlight what she claims are the county’s harsh inequalities.

Caroline Voaden, the new Liberal Democrat MP for South Devon, called for change in places like Salcombe, and told fellow MPs: “I would like us to think really hard about how we can help even out our society, so that no one is raising a disabled child in a mould-filled home within sight of a millionaire’s yacht in the harbour below.”

At the general election in July, Ms Voaden overturned a 14,000 Conservative majority to oust former MP Anthony Mangnall from the seat previously known as ‘Totnes'.

In her speech, she told parliamentarians how she came to live in rural Devon, and outlined some of its attractions and successes.

But, she added: “There is so much more to South Devon that does not make it onto the postcards or the chocolate boxes.

"We have Britain’s most expensive seaside town in Salcombe, where an average house costs £970,000, but not far away we have left-behind neighbourhoods where people struggle to make ends meet on low-paid seasonal work and live in poor-quality housing.

“This disparity of wealth can be hard to get your head around.

“We have communities that have been hollowed out by second homes to the extent that schools are closing, village shops have long gone and the last pubs are closing.

"Families are being evicted so that landlords can turn their homes into short-term holiday lets, and second homes registered as businesses are causing our council to lose out on millions of pounds a year of desperately needed resources. We must close this loophole.”

She said businesses are struggling to find staff because no one can afford to live nearby and there is no social housing.

Yet, she added: “Developers build and build to support the immigration of wealthy retired people from other areas of the country. We have more than met our housing targets, but we are still in a desperate housing crisis.

“The solution is not just build, build, build. It is about land prices, what we build and where, and who buys those homes.

"What we need is social housing, more community land trust schemes, innovation and ideas for breaking out of the developer-led disaster we are in.”