A well-known house with a 25ft shark sticking out of the roof has been banned from being used as a short let accommodation.
Oxford City Council has won the planning appeal banning the use of short let accommodation for the quirky property in New Street, Headington, more widely known as the Shark House.
On November 29, 2023, the council issued a planning enforcement notice against the owner of the property being used as a short let following a complaint from a member of the public about a change of use to short let accommodation.
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The owner appealed to the planning inspectorate, which has now dismissed the appeal and required the owner to stop using the property as a short let from March 11, 2025.
AirBnb states the property is priced at £159 per night at the moment.
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Linda Smith, cabinet member for housing and communities, said: “I’m pleased the planning inspectorate has found in our favour again and banned the use of this property as a short let.
"Once again, it’s been a lengthy process which shows the urgent need for councils to have proper powers to deal with problems caused by whole-house short lets.
“It’s almost impossible to say how many much-needed homes Oxford has lost to short lets because the sector is still virtually unregulated.
"What we do know is there are nearly 3,500 households on our waiting list and that short lets can cause misery in our communities.
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“The last government promised reform and then dropped the ball. The time for change is long overdue.”
The house was commissioned by the late Bill Heine, an American-born journalist and broadcaster, who came to Oxford in the 1960s to study at Oxford University. He worked at BBC Oxford and the Oxford Mail.
He previously said he intended the famous shark to be a protest against the American bombing of Libya, while also describing it as a statement about nuclear weapons.
According to the council, the rise of websites like Airbnb and Vrbo has led to a rapid increase in the number of short lets in Oxford in the last decade, with the increase in renting out entire properties for all or most of the year resulting in the loss of valuable homes in the UK’s "most unaffordable city".
In the worst cases, short lets have been used for illegal or antisocial purposes.
Short lets are often in quiet residential neighbourhoods, and the council says the strain this causes can be "immense".
The council has taken successful planning enforcement action in cases where owners changed the use of a house into a short let without planning permission.
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However, this is a lengthy process which relies on people making complaints about individual properties.
The council has also lobbied for the introduction of a new planning class for short lets, which would allow it to restrict their numbers and location and for enforceable conditions to be applied where necessary.
While the previous government proposed making a new use class in February 2024, this is yet to be introduced in planning law.
This would help prevent the loss of much-needed housing and reduce adverse impacts on local communities.
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