Pembrokeshire has more holiday homes than almost anywhere else in the UK, and is the most common holiday home destination for people from within Wales, new figures show.

The census figures from the Office for National Statistics highlight the growing amount of holiday homes in tourist hotspots.

The figures show there were approximately 1,800 holiday homes in Pembrokeshire when the census was taken in March 2021.

It meant there were 28 holiday homes for every 1,000 dwellings in the area – among the highest in the country.

Pembrokeshire also had the ninth largest amount of people visiting its holiday homes in the whole of the UK.

For every 1,000 local residents, 45.8 people from other local authorities used a holiday home in the area.

This was an increase of more than ten from the 2011 census when 35.2 people from other local authorities used a holiday home in the area for every 1,000 residents.

Pembrokeshire was also the most common destination for holiday home users from Wales.

Of people who used holiday homes in Pembrokeshire, almost two-thirds (62.7 per cent) were from Wales, predominantly the south.

All ten local authorities with the largest proportion of holiday home users travelling to Pembrokeshire were in south Wales, with the highest proportions from Rhondda Cynon Taf (5.3 per 1,000 local residents) and Cardiff (4.6 per 1,000).

In the UK, more than 75,000 addresses were used as holiday homes in 2021 – of these, around 10,070 were based in Wales, equating to 6.9 per 1,000 dwellings.

Dan Wilson Craw, deputy director at Generation Rent, a campaign group aimed at protecting renters' rights, said the high concentration of holiday homes is ‘taking properties out of the reach of people who need somewhere to live’.

"Airbnb has made owning a holiday home more lucrative and we saw a huge increase over the pandemic when international travel was suspended for much of 2021.

"There is fierce competition for the limited number of homes coming on the market and it is pricing out people who grew up in these communities and want to work in the tourist industries Airbnb is meant to be supporting."

Mr Wilson Craw called on local authorities to license holiday let operators and introduce higher council tax on second homes, which is already happening in Pembrokeshire.

He also urged the Government to remove ‘tax perks which make holiday lets even more profitable than normal tenancies’.

The Welsh Government said it was taking ‘radical action’ using the planning, property and taxation systems as part of a joined-up package of solutions.

"We believe that everybody has a right to a decent, affordable home to buy or to rent in their own communities so they can live and work locally,” said a spokesperson.