165,000 residents have holiday home

More than 165,000 people in England and Wales have listed a holiday home as a second address in the 2011 Census.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that 165,095 people said they stayed at a holiday home for 30 days or more a year.

The local authorities with the largest recorded number of second addresses used for holidays were Cornwall, at 10,169, and Gwynedd in north west Wales, which covers part of the Snowdonia National Park and the Lyn Peninsula, at 7,784.

Gwynedd headed a league table of local authorities with the highest rate of people with second addresses used for holidays, with 64 people from outside the local authority area having such an address for every 1,000 usual residents.

The figures, gathered for the first time by the Census, showed 1.57 million (2.8%) of the usual residents in England and Wales reported having a second address in another local authority in the two countries that they used for 30 days or more every year.

A further 47,733 usual residents of England and Wales (0.1%) had a second address in either Scotland or Northern Ireland and 820,814 (1.5%) had a second address outside the UK.

The statistics showed that 188,837 (12%) people listing a second address said it was for work purposes with 11%, or 165,095, classifying their second address as a holiday destination. The majority (77%) of those listing a second address - 1.22 million - classed their second address under the "other" category which includes students' home addresses.

Cornwall was the local authority where the greatest number of people recorded a second address, with 22,997 people usually resident elsewhere in England and Wales having a second address in the authority area used for 30 or more days every year. This was followed by Wiltshire, at 20,754, Birmingham at 17,761, Leeds, at 15,208, and Westminster at 13,415.

The authorities with the highest rate of people who have a second address for work were either London boroughs including City of London, Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea - or areas with an armed forces presence.

London boroughs topped the local authorities with the highest number of people with second addresses abroad, with 19,708 in Westminster, 17,794 in Kensington and Chelsea and 13,686 in Camden.