If you had a second home, have you or would you go to it ?

[Lardlizard]

?

I don’t think it helps when celebs put pictures of their large 2nd homes on Instagram.

If people we’re down in Devon and Cornwall when the lockdown happened that is fine. There is no need and no point in travelling hundreds of miles to a location where everything (apart from supermarkets) is shut anyway. You can’t get an online food delivery and you could be 10/20 miles from the nearest supermarket!

@lardlizard

I live in an area where many of the properties are second homes of people who live in large cities.

A lot of the locals are FURIOUS at anyone who has come to self isolate, and have made it very clear on local Facebook groups, and to their faces. They have been made to feel very unwelcome.

This is because our nearest hospital is 50 miles away and shared with a very large area. We have minimal GP surgeries and doctors. We have a tiny shop.

The population of the village is usually very small so it is obvious which houses are lived in when they aren't normally, and it is obvious which people in the shops are not local.

Tourists are usually very welcome, but not at the moment as all they are doing is putting our medical care, and thus lives, at risk.

I'm not saying I have participated in any of the above behaviour, I haven't. But I agree with the sentiment. Many second home owners who have compromised the village at this time have completely severed their ties with the locals and I doubt they will be made to feel welcome again.

So, if not for the whole saving lives thing, maybe this will make people think twice?

@Nanny0gg, that is true but the fact a big celeb buys a second home in the area still has a negative effect. It encourages those with a lower budget to buy a second home in the area and again boosts gentrification. It's obviously not all bad to invest better quality of amenities and such in an area, but on the negative side when people like Mr Ramsay get bored of that place, the whole economy of the local area can fall into disrepair.

Rhyl is a classic example of what happens when a tourist area with no other funding gets left once people get bored. Now the young generation can't make money from those across the border coming for holidays, and they can't afford to build lives there either. Nothing has changed about N.E Wales, it still has beautiful areas to visit. However, the tourist who made it also destroyed it, and it's always the locals who suffer either way.

@nannyogg not all second homes are rambling mansions. Some, if not the majority (at least where I live) are two/three bed semis.

People from Wales and Cornwall move to London and other cities and price the locals out there. People buy second home city bolt holes, again pricing out locals. That's why London's so crowded and therefore suffering so badly from Covid.

I'd definitely have left a city if I could. It's the cities that are full of Covid. It's their hospitals that can't cope hence the new nightingale hospitals being built in the cities. You're far safer rurally. Less people, more spread out - and it will stay that way long after Covid. Double standards of rural people moving to cities causing more overcrowding - being welcomed by tolerant city people, but in return remaining as unwelcoming and as insular as ever towards any incomers. I agree with SarahInAccounts

No, because I'm not a twat. That's also why I don't have a second home, so I can see why there might be a problem.

The beckhams flew into the country didn’t they.

Lock down would be much easier at my mothers house. but all our food is here. and our support network is here. I would like to do lockdown in a house with a garden not in a flat with only communal areas.

It has very little to do with local capacity.

Bullshit it doesn't. It's still true that locals hospitals will not be able to cope if the virus exploded in a small rural area. The reason Wales, Scotland and other areas are not as badly affected is because most people are staying away and leaving the locals to it. It would just take one unknowingly infected person from a city to come visit their second home and cause a disaster.

There are other issues, like the smaller shops not expected to get enough stock in for the unexpected tourists. It may seem very Royston, but at the moment local shops do need to supply for locals only.

A few of my London based family have decamped to their rural second homes near me. While I agree it’s selfish I’m also glad they’re up here now.

I’m complaining about the influx on one hand and secretly glad my family are here on the other.

Second home owning is terrible for communities.

I live in a very un-lovely village next to a national park. This was always a place to get started on the housing ladder, and some families have lived here for generations. There is a harmony and ease between the multi-generations and the newer people. It is a lovely community. We are nearby pretty tourist villages, but have was a tourist hot-spot. It is a good commute to the nearby hospital/university.

A couple years a go a company put a major tourist attraction in our village. They treat local workers terrible- they let them go just before two years, seasonal jobs only, etc. Now, many of the starter homes in our village are AirBnBs. My first house is not an AirBnB (that makes me sad, it was a lovely home for a new family). People can't afford to get on the property ladder and there are no affordable rentals. The school population is shrinking. We have not been compensated with lots of lovely shops and restaurants - that is all isolated at the tourist spot. The economic cost is negative for the village. We are worse off as a community. A few people profit from tourism, but communities suffer.

@Lardlizard these homes are not constantly used. Most are only occupied in the summer months.
The shops here could not keep up with the sudden demand on the 21st 22nd march. And have not caught up yet. That weekend was like a summers day with the amount of visitors.
We have a large number of elderly here who rely on the shop. As the same with everywhere online deliveries are like gold dust.
Our town normally relies on tourist trade, but like many other coastal towns we are asking for people to stay away.
When this is all over we will welcome visitors again. I love the hustle of our town and beaches in the summer, the town comes alive, especially with our many festivals.
I won't get into any nonsense of wealth being part of it. Bashing wealthy people this is not what is about.
It's about protecting smaller vulnerable communities with less access to hospitals.

I don’t and I wouldn’t . A family member does and she went to check it before the lockdown. She knew she wouldn’t be there for a while .
Thankfully she has more space at home than at the seaside house .
I can understand why people would head out of London but I don’t care tbh . The wealthy will always abuse the rules unfortunately.

It’s the local and vulnerable people in the idyllic areas I’d be more concerned about .

SarahInAccounts looking at it from another point of view the police have had to put roadblocks on every road into the lake District. Some people trying to get in are turned away repeatedly as they try other routes and times to get in.

Medieval pitchfork wavers ? No my dear, that's fear from the reality of having 8 ICU beds to go around 500000 people.

There is a good argument in the current situation, against those with a choice moving to a place with a less developed health care system, thus putting an additional strain on that health care system. But that is not a SECOND HOME argument. What if you live in North Yorks and have a second home in London as many do? In those circumstances maybe you should be moving TO your second home to alleviate the stress on the North Yorks system.

There is also an argument against people buying second homes and pricing young locals out of the market. But that has nothing to do with COVID19. Interestingly the vast majority of second home owners in our neck of the woods are people who had family here but moved away to go to university and work. They thenbought in their 40s and 50s with a view to moving back in retirement.

Yes I do and no I haven't, but only because it is not in the UK and there were travel restrictions put in place before I had a chance to leave. Otherwise I totally would have.

It's in a very rural and isolated area where I am far less at risk of catching the virus (or indeed of spreading it, should I have unwittingly arrived already carrying it) than staying here in the city I live in, surrounded by people at every turn.

My ‘second home’ is a touring caravan parked on our drive. I’m currently flitting between it, and our first home.

I’m actually cleaning it, but flitting sounds more exciting.

Yes Airbnb has made things extremely difficult for younger people needing homes. The problem it's caused in already expensive tourist cities, Barcelona, Berlin, London, has been widely covered in the media. It's a shame the issue's spread to rural areas too.

MouthBreathingRage Why do you think the Nightingale hospitals have been built? Hospitals can't cope in the cities. Rural areas are far better off, and if they weren't they'd get a nightingale hospital too. Possibly they'll need one as the majority of people who left cities before lockdown weren't second home owners but rather locals who'd moved to cities (putting pressure on city resources) going home to families. There's quite a lot of them. You're right about most non locals staying away. The tolerant welcome city inhabitants give to rural newcomers isn't reciprocated, unless you count pitch forks as a welcome.

@WhatWouldYouDoWhatWouldJesusDo

We've had similar. All of our car parks barricaded to stop tourists parking up and going to the beaches, after that horrendous sunny weekend just before lockdown which was busier than a normal bank holiday for us.

And of course that has in turn affected the locals from surrounding farms and houses getting to the local shop and pharmacy.

There are two separate arguments getting mixed up here. One is the negative impact of holiday home ownership on communities - as someone who lived for a long time in a tiny isolated coastal village I understand this. It is t about jealousy it’s about community cohesion. It is not, however, the problem now. The second argument is - that small rural communities have limited medical care which is based on the number of permanent residents (and even the at fewer facilities per head than in cities). That is what is making people angry about second homes at the moment. Rural communities really need access to the medical resources, they don’t need other people, coming from places with more chance of viral infection, moving in and taking up those resources.

What if you live in North Yorks and have a second home in London as many do?

Having a second home in London isn't really comparable (bar the issue that London is now horrifically overpriced in housing). Many have second properties there to work during the week and come home to their families for the weekend. London is also not primarily reliant on tourist, but could survive if it was as people are not going to stop visiting London, are they? The issue with the reverse is that once a small area becomes a tourist hotspot, it's stuck in that cycle. There's a boom in economic every spring to early autumn, then no work all winter. Local authorities wont invest as at a glance it looks like the place is becoming prosperous, when in fact young people feel they cant stay due to lack of stable jobs and housing. So it pushes away those who have lived there their whole lives, and replaced them with second home owners and retirees, who eventually leave or pass away.

If we had one and we lived in a city, yes we’d have gone before lockdown night, it was obviously coming.

PurpleTigerLove It's the local and vulnerable people in London and the cities I'm worried about. It's the cities where Covid is wreaking havoc, it's the cities suffering a high death rate, it's the cities whose hospitals can't cope. They weren't afforded the same protection rural areas were. Whilst roadblocks were set up in rural parts, city airports were open for business as normal, offloading people onto London's packed transport, and even now Heathrow continues to operate.