A building society will no longer lend for the purchase of second homes, saying they reduce the stock available for first time and other buyers.

The Leeds Building Society will still offer buy to let mortgages and loans on holiday homes available to let for over 24 weeks a year but – with immediate effect – is refusing loans for other additional properties.

Instead it says it will focus on other sectors, such as affordable housing and help for first-time buyers, to help fulfil its purpose to put home ownership within reach of more people.

Chief executive Richard Fearon says: “We’ve taken this decision after a great deal of thought as we don’t believe support for second homes is compatible with our purpose to put home ownership within reach of more people.

“Second homes reduce the number of properties available for people to live in at a time when there’s a wide consensus that housing supply in the UK is inadequate to meet demand and needs to be increased.”

The anti-second homes move came in a trading statement from the society, which saw its pre-tax profit more than double to £146.5m in the first six months of the year compared to a year ago.

The Leeds is the UK’s fifth-largest building society; it says nine of its 10 biggest lending days occurred in the first half of this year, leading to its highest number of completions in a six month period.

A leading spokesperson for Generation Rent rapidly took to Twitter to say the building society did not go far enough.

Dan Wilson Craw, deputy director of the activist group, said: “Good to see LeedsBS refusing second home buyers’ business in the interests of affordability – but if their concern is home ownership specifically, they should stop lending to landlords too.”