Turning the tide on second homes with taxes

Photograph: Edwin Remsberg/Getty Images

Simon Jenkins (Second homes can be a blight and a blessing on British towns. We need the right balance, 25 June) describes the places where people like him live part-time as “favoured communities”. A thriving community must include young families – a vital group excluded from my village because second-home buyers keep prices and rents stratospheric. Only policies that challenge this will bring back vibrant rural communities, and that includes taxing people with second homes to subsidise affordable housing.
John Hambley
Snape, Suffolk

• In the 20 best films set on trains (23 June), why is there no place for the 1937 comedy Oh, Mr Porter! starring Will Hay? I saw it as a child (a postwar rerelease) and enjoyed it then as now. The film is only partly on a train, but that’s the bit everyone remembers.
Henry Spyvee
Guildford, Surrey

• My ability to stand on one leg for 60 seconds (Letters, 23 June) did not prevent my fall last week, resulting in a black eye!
Helen Evans (aged 79)
Ruthin, Denbighshire

• If there’s anything to the research on balance, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull should be as happy as Larry and making plans for the next 100 years or so.
Robert Davies,
Cardiff

• Delighted to hear the ability to balance on one leg is linked to long life – as an above-knee amputee I’m really good at it.
Di Oliver
Milton Keynes

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