"Cast_Iron" wrote in message
...
Given the that the increased road congestion in Friday and Sunday
evenings
is caused by many people going and from to their country cottages for the
weekend, isn't it time that second homes attracted a punative rate of
council tax?

An added bonus of this would be to free-up houses in rural and other
touristy areas that young people on local wages could afford to buy or
rent
who would then spend money in the local economy.



I can't say I have a second home, but why should a second home be heavily
taxed? Second homes make very low demands upon local services. I would
suspect that even if you prevented anyone from owning a second home, it
would make little difference to the general housing market.

People travelling to their 2nd homes pay plenty of tax travelling to them. I
would suspect most traffic though is caused by people seeing friends or
relatives, or travelling to/from their place of work for the week.

Mikael