The BBC reports how a Cornish resident has been forced into living in an Airbnb due to soaring private rent prices

As a Cornish painter and decorator, Heath Robinson spends a lot of time maintaining holiday homes - but he never thought he'd end up living in one.

When his landlord needed to sell up, single-parent Heath realised private rents in Penzance, his hometown, had rocketed.

The council couldn't find anywhere to house him and five-year-old son Carson - and they were declared homeless.

But just as they prepared to move to a low-budget hotel, a local man saw Heath's panicked social-media posts and offered them his Airbnb.

The irony of the situation isn't lost on Heath:

"Because of the pandemic, over the past two years pretty much all my clients have been second homers and Airbnb people," he says.

"These people need me for their businesses - but because of the way the system is, we are being driven out.

"High earners can now live somewhere like here rather than in the city and that's hiked up the prices."

Heath had been served a Section 21 "no fault" eviction notice, which allows private landlords to ask tenants to leave, if they meet certain conditions, without giving a reason.

While renters were given extra protection earlier in the pandemic, in England only two months' notice now has to be given.

And that's made life difficult in visitor hotspots such as Cornwall, where landlords are capitalising on rising house prices and lucrative short-term lets.

Local residents have also reported the plans and saving they have set aside for house buying are now an impossible option.

House prices in Cornwall rose 50% faster than the UK average in the first year of the pandemic, to £270,000 - 13 times the average local salary, £20,710, which is 20% lower than that of the wider UK.

Cath Navin Hayes, who founded Cornwall campaign group First Not Second Homes, estimates 660 households are in temporary emergency accommodation, two and a half times the usual rate.

"Not enough affordable housing is being built and the private rental market has virtually no properties - and they are often too expensive for the average Cornish wage," she says.

"The pandemic has intensified the problem, with staycations and a lack of foreign travel encouraging investment in property and a flipping by landlords from long- to short-term holiday letting."

The number of short-term listings in Cornwall rose by 661% in the five years to September 2021, analysis from the countryside charity CPRE suggests.

About 15,000 properties are now available as holiday lets, the charity says - the same as the number of families on social-housing waiting lists.

- Read the full BBC article here