Pembrokeshire County Council’s newest councillor took the chair to authorise the continuation of extra council tax for second home owners.

Thursday’s urgency committee elected Clr. Jon Harvey as chairman for its brief meeting where it agreed that second home owners will continue to pay an extra 50 per cent council tax.

Director of resources Jon Haswell told members that the departure of the former head of revenue and housing had resulted in the matter missing full council discussion.

It needed to be decided so that the council tax base calculation for 2019-20 which is due for submission to the Welsh Government on November 23.

A report to the committee states that there are 3,794 second homes paying 150 per cent council tax, generating around £1.9million of additional revenue.

Around 830 homes had been transferred from council tax to business rates.

Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act list 4,093 domestic properties classed as second homes, 1,807 classed as self-catering units for non-domestic rate purposes.

Since 2016 824 properties have moved from domestic to non-domestic rates.

Of the self-catering properties 1,777 are under the £12,000 threshold for rates and 1,721 receive Small Business Relief.

The committee agreed that the council tax working group considers the second home premium on an annual basis, with any possible changes reported to full council.

The extra charges were introduced in March 2016 and a working group set up to oversee “administration of the premium” in April 2017.