Lacock is a ‘dying village’ with more than a dozen empty homes which have sat vacant for years, according to a concerned resident.

Following the deaths of several elderly occupants, one tenant said: “Lacock is a dying village. There are at least 12 empty properties and it could be more. Another man died over the weekend.

“It is just sad because Lacock is a very unique village and the houses are going to rack and ruin. Some of them have been empty now for two years.

“It is not good policy to keep these very old houses empty because they get damp. Like all houses, if you haven’t got heat in them they do get damp. Where we are, there is no double glazing, or anything like that. 

“We are being told that people need houses, but they have just got too expensive for normal people. It is just very sad.

“There is a lot of feeling in Lacock of resentment, not particularly against the National Trust as such, but for their policies.”

The pensioner, who is in her 70s, is concerned high rents charged by The National Trust, which owns 90 properties in Lacock housing around 460 people out of a population of just over 900, are contributing to the problem.

“I have never known a housing situation like this because everyone wants to live here,” she said.

“It is sad because we are not having the younger ones coming in. You can have mortgages for less than what they are paying.

“I mean £1,500 for a house in the village but you can’t park outside. It is a lot of money.”

Village rents range from £750 to £3,000 a month, but Ian Wilson, the National Trust’s assistant director of operations, rejected claims the popular and picturesque village is dying because rents are unaffordable.

Mr Wilson said: “We don’t have a problem. When we go out to let properties, we are generally oversubscribed.”

He says the trust is turning around properties as quickly as it can, considering the challenges faced managing historic homes and the added hurdles of Covid.

Nine houses are currently lying empty and the trust has recently let four of them, he says. The trust is  about to offer two more and another two or three will come onto the market in the New Year.

The National Trust typically annually invests between £250,000 and £300,000 in maintaining and refurbishing its properties in Lacock.

Mr Wilson said: “There is the added legacy of Covid. We have not been able to maintain and refurbish the properties because of the pandemic. As a charity, we did put the investment programme on hold. We focused our spend on properties where people were living.

“The longest vacant property that we have got in Lacock has been empty for about 18 months. The rest have been vacant for six-12 months, which is basically through the Covid period.”

Lacock Parish Council chairwoman Jane Durrant said it was working with the trust to fill homes as soon as possible.

“We have been pushing the National Trust hard on this. They are investing in properties and getting them back on the market as quickly as they can,” she said.

“Two have recently been done up and are in the process of being tenanted - people should be moving in in the New Year.

“Some of the properties require quite a lot of work and significant investment to bring them up to the standards they need to be, particularly around the levels of energy efficiency and things like that.

“The National Trust is slowly working through that but only has a certain budget available.

“But certainly they have got plans in place now to work through those properties. Some of them need over £100,000 to be spent on them.”