“I never dreamed that at 56 I would rent a room with all my belongings in a container,” says a victim of the Forest of Dean housing boom

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A 56-year-old woman has recounted how she ended up living in a rented room with all her material belongings in a dumpster while home prices in the Bosque skyrocketed at one of the highest rates in the country. Sarah Young owned her own home and business until she had to take time off for family reasons and ran into financial problems.

But ever since he lost his home he has struggled to find a permanent and affordable place to live in the Forest of Dean. She is not alone and believes that the growth of Airbnb holiday rentals for tourists has helped fuel a crisis in the district that was once considered one of the cheapest areas in Gloucestershire to live.

Although the national housing market is said to be cooling off due to rising interest rates, home prices in the woods continue to rise at a faster rate than elsewhere. Just this week, the dean was named one of ten English authorities where house prices are rising much faster than the 10.1 percent inflation rate.

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According to the survey, the 14.2% rise in house prices put Forest sixth on a list of 10 areas of the UK property market that are “inflation-busting” and ripe for investors. The highest was Shetland, where house prices rose 24% since the pandemic made rural life more attractive.

But while a booming market could be good news for homeowners, many of whom crossed the River Severn to escape soaring Bristol house prices when bridge tolls were removed, it’s bad news for people. like Sarah. She says this has resulted in a shortage of affordable rental properties in the district where she was born and raised.

“Twenty years ago I was renting an idyllic two-bedroom cabin in the woods for a very moderate salary,” said Sarah, who comes from a middle-class background. “I never dreamed that at 56 she would be renting a room with all my belongings stored in a container.

“I am not an isolated case by any means, only yesterday I was chatting with the lady who has the container next to mine, a very respectable lady, in exactly the same position as me. I met a lady last year who lived in her car because she didn’t want to be put up in a travel lodge in Gloucester.”

Things started to go wrong for single Sarah when her father became seriously ill and “everything had to take a backseat” while she and her sister focused on caring for their parents. He died in 2011, but she never caught up financially and was forced to sell her house in 2015.

For two years he kept a roof over his head through squatting and a conservatorship scheme on a vacant property in Coleford. He then spent five years living in a room in a shared rented cottage, but had to move because the owner wanted to sell.

Struggling to find another place to live, she moved into the staff quarters of an empty Herefordshire nursing home that was waiting to be converted into a family home. “There was no heat or hot water, too far from mom, who is 88 and had a broken hip, so a friend of mine in the woods offered to rent her attic room,” she said.

“ I have been looking for a place for two years. I am on Rightmove, Marketplace, Spareroom and the social housing site every day looking for new properties. Very little is added in the woods, maybe two a week, and what you make is over £600 a month for a small flat, with the bills on top. All estate agents and social housing sites have hundreds of people waiting on their books.”

The average house price in the Forest is now around £265,000 and although lower than in many areas, housing is often out of reach for local people because the average salary is also lower. Many of the smaller, more affordable farmhouses for workers have been acquired and converted into larger houses by those moving from more expensive areas.

On top of this, the forest has enjoyed a huge tourism boom that really took off when the pandemic prevented people from traveling abroad and staying at home. The area, once seen as the poor relation of the Cotswolds, has increasingly become a go-to place for those who love the outdoors. .

“My last visit to Airbnb’s ‘Forest of Dean cabins’ returned over 1,000 results and that’s just one rental site among many,” Sarah said. “I need to be close to my elderly mother and sister, but vacation rentals are driving people out of the forest and killing communities.”

Figures from the housing charity Shelter show that the number of affordable social housing rental properties nationally has fallen dramatically from 396,000 in 2011-12 to 267,000 last year. 480 new social housing leases were offered to tenants in Forest of Dean in 2021-22, but hundreds on the waiting list were left disappointed.

Although there are 1,628 homes on the Bosque housing registry, the National Housing Federation believes the official figures for the entire country are just the tip of the iceberg. They say that many people do not bother to write their names because they know they will never get to the top of the list due to the strict criteria for houses that appear.

Sarah doesn’t think the planning rule changes to stop Airbnbs will ease the situation because she says it will only make cabin owners sell at high prices. The only way forward that she can see is legislation to limit rents and reserve affordable new construction for the local population at out-of-market prices.

A local council spokesperson said: “Affordable housing is a key priority for Forest of Dean District Council and we continue to work hard with developers to ensure there are affordable homes for people across the district. By 2022, more than 200 new affordable rental homes and co-ownership homes delivered across the Forest of Dean, with more planned for 2023.

“There are currently 1,628 households on the housing registry throughout the district and we will continue to work with those households to provide affordable housing to residents who need it most.”

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