>the developments are all pitched at hyper wealthy individuals, whether retirement individuals with £500k to spunk on a 1-bed per my example or people from outside the region who are buying holiday homes at similarly inflated values. I don't think anyone locally would say "don't build", instead it's "please build for locals" (where "local" = normal locally employed person).
They really do say "don't build". Or rather, their actions (revealed preference) say "don't build", regardless of what comes out of their mouths. Housing developments that would be affordable to normal people get blocked all the time. There are too many people with veto power, and someone can almost always find an excuse to say "no".
So what does get built is biased towards the luxury end, by necessity. Developers have to make up in margin what they lose in volume. There's no way around this.
Think about it: if you make it illegal to build holiday homes, that doesn't get rid of the demand for holiday homes, does it? Those same wealthy people will be competing over a smaller stock of possible housing, i.e. the very same housing that local people want to live in. So the prices will still go up! What you're proposing cannot possibly work, unless you want to make it literally illegal for outsiders to move in.
When you artificially restrict supply, you get a shortage. It's not rocket science.
They really do say "don't build". Or rather, their actions (revealed preference) say "don't build", regardless of what comes out of their mouths. Housing developments that would be affordable to normal people get blocked all the time. There are too many people with veto power, and someone can almost always find an excuse to say "no".
So what does get built is biased towards the luxury end, by necessity. Developers have to make up in margin what they lose in volume. There's no way around this.
Think about it: if you make it illegal to build holiday homes, that doesn't get rid of the demand for holiday homes, does it? Those same wealthy people will be competing over a smaller stock of possible housing, i.e. the very same housing that local people want to live in. So the prices will still go up! What you're proposing cannot possibly work, unless you want to make it literally illegal for outsiders to move in.
When you artificially restrict supply, you get a shortage. It's not rocket science.