John-Mark McCafferty

And now that looks to be moved to 20,000.

So there's only so many towns and cities that are above 20,000 population.

And therefore, the regulations that are going to come in, they will not apply to a lot of villages.

You know, commuter towns, smaller urban centres and tourism-dependent areas and villages, they're also under severe housing strain.

And so that's also another concern for threshold because, you know, ultimately this is around housing supply, it's around supply in the private rented market.

And while short-term lets aren't the only reason why we're in this kind of mess, this lack of housing supply, it's certainly not happened and it has exacerbated the lack of supply, both in terms of housing generally and particularly in the private rental sector.

Well, I mean, we're hoping that, you know, government will...

stick to the convictions and, you know, put their money where their mouth is in terms of saying that, you know, housing supply is an absolute imperative for them and do this by May 20th.

And if they don't, you know, there will be implications, implications in terms of what the EU does, the European Commission does, but also there'll be implications in relation to

This measure being once again delayed or indeed watered down, that is not good news for people trying to find homes in the private rented sector.

It's not good news for the housing system in general.

And the government needs to show leadership here and make some decisive action and communicate to all stakeholders what's going to happen.