Second-home owners in seaside paradise resort Salcombe are banned from using litter bins or bottle banks unless they pay a £350-a-year bin tax

• Those who refuse will be banned from taking waste and recycling to rubbish tip

Holiday home-owners in Britain’s most expensive seaside property location have been banned from using litter bins and bottle banks – unless they pay a £350-a-year ‘bin tax’ or hire private rubbish collectors.

Second-home owners in Salcombe in Devon who refuse to pay up will also be banned from taking their waste and recycling to the council-run rubbish tip under new rules outlined in a warning letter from South Hams Council to 2,000 owners.

The alarming letter – which comes weeks after council tax was doubled – warns owners that failure to register a holiday home with the council or an approved commercial collector is a criminal offence.

Stickers have been placed on street bins in Salcombe with the warning message: ‘No Holiday Home Waste…Leaving your rubbish around litter bins is fly tipping. You will be fined or prosecuted.’

Last night, furious second-home owners in the town – where the average house price is £1.2million – said the bin tax was the latest wheeze by town hall officials to squeeze more money from them.

It comes after holiday home-owners in the pretty Devon town were told their council tax would be doubling to an average of £4,200 a year after the council applied a ‘second-homes premium’ to their properties.

The bin tax means visitors staying at an unregistered holiday property will expose the owner to a £300 fixed-penalty notice if they drop litter in street bins or use council recycling sites.

In its letter, sent to second-home owners earlier this month, South Hams District Council said it was entitled to charge £350 for waste and recycling collections from holiday lets ‘regardless of the type or amount of waste produced.’

It said: ‘These properties are not permitted to use the domestic service funded by the taxpayer. This includes… recycling banks, litter bins and household recycling centres.’

But one second-home owner told The Mail on Sunday: ‘It’s absurd. How on earth will they enforce it?

‘Are council staff going to lurk around litter bins to check the rubbish registration status of someone chucking in a Mars Bar wrapper?

‘I’ve owned a place in Salcombe for 20 years and this is the first I’ve heard of it. They just want to wring more money out of people already facing big increases in council tax or business rates.’

But last night permanent residents in the picturesque South Hams fishing port of Salcombe, where average house prices top £1.2million, back the council.

And one said locals were already ‘dobbing in’ holiday-home owners who try to dodge the bin tax.

Shop manager Pete Ford, 32, said: ‘They won’t need to enforce it.

‘Local people are already doing the job for them by dobbing-in owners of second-home holiday lets who don’t follow the rules.

‘I know a couple of places where this has happened. Residents spot renters slipping out with bags of rubbish and report it to the council.

‘Next thing, you see a commercial waste bin appears outside the property.

‘Of course, Salcombe needs second homes and visitors who rent them. But these places are being run for profit.

‘Owners should pay to have commercial waste collected, like all businesses.’

Boatbuilder Mike Wrigley, 61, said: ‘If you run a business you pay into the system.

‘I see some holiday-home visitors heading on to the street with armfuls of rubbish to dump in litter bins.

‘They don’t want it in their car as they head back up the motorway.’

Controversy over second homes has heightened in recent weeks – particularly in the most sought-after seaside retreats.

Villagers in two picturesque Norfolk boltholes – Blakeney and Burnham Market – last month backed proposed council crackdowns to stop any new-build which is not a main residence.

Owners of existing properties will also face tougher planning hurdles before they can convert them to holiday lets. It follows similar controls in St Ives, Cornwall, Swanage, Dorset, Tenby and Pembrokeshire.

Richard Toomer, executive director of Tourism Alliance said second-home owners should not be a cash cow for councils.

He said: ‘Holidaymakers are hugely important in many local destinations, including South Hams, and they contribute significantly to the local economy and support jobs.

‘Additional costs will undoubtedly be passed onto holidaymakers who are already really feeling the pinch of this cost-of-living crisis.’

According to mortgage lenders Halifax, Salcombe last year overtook Sandbanks in Dorset as the most expensive seaside property market in Britain.

The Office for National Statistics says the town has the highest concentration of second homes in the country, at 44.1 per thousand properties. It is followed by Gwynedd in North Wales (41), North Norfolk (38.7) and Anglesey (32.9).

A spokesman for South Hams Council declined to say how the litter bin ban would work in practice.

He said: ‘Commercial waste produced by a short-term holiday let business should not be disposed of via these methods.

‘Each business must have an arrangement in place to remove the waste and recycling from the property.’