Do you think Cornwall will be 'open' in July?

[NoSoapAndGory]

Hi all.

A purely speculative post to gauge opinions, as I know we don't know, don't have a crystal ball, etc etc.

We have booked a self catering holiday cottage near Bude for the first 10 days of July. We live in the South East, so it's about 5 hours drive to get there on a good day. We have a dog so would need to stop at a service station at least once.

As part of general future-focused conversation, DH and I are ruminating about

1: will we be 'allowed' to go
2: if we are, would we want to anyway?
3: if it's 'allowed', will the Bude community welcome us or hate us?
4: will the tourist industry want revenue or not?

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Anyone else having similar discussions, and if so, what are you thinking?

Goodness me! Anyone would think Cornwall is the only tourist destination in the UK! I realise that’s what the OP was originally talking about but think about everyone else in other parts of the country who are struggling just as much. Cumbria and the Lake District, Yorkshire’s East Coast, beautiful South Wales, the Yorkshire Dales and here in my lovely home in the Peak District.

All we hear is how terrible Cornwall has got it. I acknowledge that a lot of Londoners have a ‘thing’ about Cornwall but there is life North of Watford! My friends in Cumbria whose holiday cottage business is stuffed also rely on tourists for their income and their nearest hospital is in Carlisle which is an hour and a half away from them on similar narrow country roads.

Cornwall is not the unique case they’d like to portray themselves as. The North East and Yorkshire have the highest level of unemployment anywhere in the UK. According to the office of national statistics (ONS) Yorkshire and the Humber has the highest rate of unemployment and the South West actually has the lowest. And that’s before coronavirus has ripped through.

I don’t think the unemployed steel workers and miners around places like Redcar and Middlesbrough will be weeping for the poor souls in Cornwall who has fared far better from wealthy tourists from SE England than anybody ‘oop norf’.

Sorry Cornish folk but with all your moaning and ‘keep away’ signs, if, God willing we get any holidays next year it will be in God’s own country - Whitby In Yorkshire and further up in Northumberland. You have got nothing that is more beautiful or beaches more unspoilt as those at Warkworth and Bamburgh so we won’t be troubling you at all.

I have the Haven near Hayle booked for the last week of July - booked early this year. We forfeited our Easter holiday but I naively thought this would all be over by July so we could still go to Haven. But I’m less sure now

Even if we’re allowed to travel if there’s still a lockdown of sorts in place what’s the point if there’s no where to visit or no restaurants? That’s the whole fun of UK holidays, being able to explore

It’s fine saying ‘well that’s a bit I’m ok Jack attitude’ or ‘it’s only money’ but it was far from cheap and the thought of sitting in a caravan cooking every night isnt thrilling me

So I hope the decision is to cancel all holidays so at least we can rebook

Doubt anyone will be holidaying anywhere until at least September at the earliest and I wouldn't be surprised if it's not much later than that.

kierenthecommunity - some local restaurants in our Cornish town are doing delivery. The fish and chip shop is closed but the pub does delivery to holiday homes. I'd bring your own food though - the shelves are still quite empty in our supermarket and alot of people are getting fruit and veg boxes or fish/meat delivered instead of a disappointing supermarket shop.

Interestingly this is not an issue limited to the UK. I have family in Hawaii & they were recently moaning about tourists hitting the beach when everyone was supposed to be socially distancing. They also have the same worries about whet will happen as holiday businesses start to re open

Firstly please don't think I am having a go, it's just a personal thing to me and presumably many others too.

I cannot see the attraction of being somewhere that hordes of tourists visit in Summer. You know, sardine can packed beaches, blocked roads, everywhere jammers, you get the picture. Applies to all popular places, not just Cornwall. That's a no from me.

But anyway, I do realise that such places rely on tourist income in the season, but that won't be happening this year, and for a while yet I'd imagine.

Maybe Prince Charles as Duke in the Duchy of Cornwall will make a huge donation or something from his private estate. LOL.

duchyofcornwall.org/about-the-duchy/

I'd rather stay home than battle the traffic jams, the heat, the crowds etc. But that's just me. Best wishes to Cornwall and other holiday spots. Hope you all survive, but I think this year is going to be a washout unfortunately.

It’s fine saying ‘well that’s a bit I’m ok Jack attitude’ or ‘it’s only money’ but it was far from cheap and the thought of sitting in a caravan cooking every night isnt thrilling me

It's not a meal out but I heard today the pasty company where my DH works is preparing to reopen its shop within in just a week (near Haven)

I prefer the beaches up in Northumberland (Id love to live there). Absolutely beautiful! and Wales.

Sorry I posted too soon....

What I’m trying to say is that the UK is surrounded by beautiful place to visit. 😍

when I move away from Cornwall (hopefully by 2022!) I’ll only be coming back to visit family. I wouldn’t “holiday” here!

@OhMargo I completely agree with you! I can't think of anything worse than going anywhere in the height of summer which is why we go in either May or September.

I don't have kids so I'm lucky I can choose when I go, I appreciate others aren't that lucky.

These posts have given me something to think about and we might try Northumberland next as the beaches look beautiful.

All roads lead to Gwithian or Gweek , is this just to terrify the non locals and get their hedging skills up scratch

@Lincolnfield out if interest....how many hospitals do you have within reasonable driving distance from your home? I'll bet any money it isn't one. And I'll also bet you won't have one hospital serving an entire county.

@Lincolnfield I'll also just leave this here. Warkworth indeed. Nothing more beautiful you say?

This is Porthcurno, if you care to visit us next year

I would like to see evidence of where residents of Cornwall actually get treatment. As I said earlier, I live in a county the same size as Cornwall. We are a more affluent county. We have two hospitals but others are accessed by patients if necessary and depending where they live and specialisms required. The idea that one hospital meets all the needs of Cornwall residents from all cancers, heart and brain surgery, burns units and spinal specialisms is just not possible. Patients must travel outside of Cornwall. Lots of people in rural areas travel to hospitals. That’s not unusual. I suspect lots of rural areas only have one Covid dedicated hospital too.

Porthcurno is bloody gorgeous!

I suspect lots of rural areas only have one Covid dedicated hospital too.

Yes, I agree that many rural areas struggle with hospital provision. My ILs live in a place that is in many ways very similar to Cornwall, and everyone is always worried about saving the local hospital.

However, although it is a tourist destination, they are never overwhelmed in the same way that Cornwall is. I once visited them after going to Cornwall and was convinced there had been some kind of beach closing jelly fish incident because the beach was so empty in comparison to Cornwall - but it was just a normal day in peak season.

Lincolnfield asked why everyone is so obsessed with Cornwall when other parts of the country are also having a difficult time, but that is the issue - rightly or wrongly lots of people are 'obsessed' with going to Cornwall* and that creates a particular problem during a pandemic.

*Difficult to blame them looking at LocalYokel's picture.

I think Cornwall has been more vocal than other holiday areas about not wanting visitors. So hence the thread concentrating on Cornwall.

I thought this thread was started because the OP had booked a holiday in Bude?

Difficult to blame them looking at LocalYokel's picture

www.express.co.uk/travel/articles/1002608/cornwall-beaches-tourist-ban-uk-heatwave-Porthcurno-Kynance-poldark-beach

Not the reality though, from June to September, getting from one end of Cronwall to the other can take 3 plus hours approx 84miles.
these issues stop businesses that could provide decent hi skilled jobs from setting up here.

And this is the thing - many of the Cornish haven’t even been to Gweek or Porthcurno.

The first time I went to Porthcurno was last year (out of season) and I’m 34!

I don’t know anyone who’s been to the Seal Sanctuary in the last decade 😂 my husband and I have never been and he’s 38 and Cornish too...

I think the traffic jams and narrow roads scared our parents and now have scared us too - we just wouldn’t make those journeys for a beach. Or for some fishy seals. It would be a waste of a day!

Do you think the Lake District is any different? Not so many beaches but very crowded! If you live there it’s a lot quieter outside the school holidays!

I've not been to Cornwall since I was about 19 and think there are prettier, friendlier and less crowded places to go on holiday

We go almost every year, sometimes twice, but never in school holidays.

During term time, it is remarkably quiet. We have a favourite beach on Roseland, and it rarely has more than about 20 people on it and it's big, so you can easily be 200 yards from the next nearest people.

We're often one of only 2 couples from outside the area in pubs (we eat out), rarely encounter problems parking (despite being in a motorhome that requires a lot of room to manouevre), and find that if we stay away from the "honeypots" like St Ives, Polperro, Padstow, Tintagel etc it's usually no more busy than my small Sussex town on a weekday afternoon.

And we don't find it unfriendly, either. A couple of times we've had a problem with the van and people have been very friendly and helpful, they're always very willing to give advice as where we can get gas and water (we Britstop, so don't use campsites) give treats for the dog and on one occasion a lovely, juicy bone (thank you to the butcher in St Just).

Pubs that aren't in the Britstop scheme are often happy to let us overnight for free and one farm shop gave us free eggs after we had breakfast in their cafe and commented how nice they were.

I'm really mystified by the number of people who say it's unfriendly. I can only think everyone undergoes some sort of personality change when the schools break up.

Baffled by the amount of people posting here saying they 'used to love Cornwall, but because of their attitude through this I think we'll stay away and find some-where more pretty and friendly'...as if that's a sort of threat?

It's oversubscribed here at the best of times. Tourists have risen by the millions over the last few years, and with that has come a rather unpleasant experience for both residents and tourists alike. Hours long queues to get in to car parks, beaches packed within millimetres, piles and piles of waste strewn over campsites and beauty spots, and ambulance wait times in the summer of a few hours as they try and cope with the influx.

A couple less million in the summer months might actually give us a chance to breathe

A load of Londoners have already gone to cornwall

@LocalYokel84 Derbyshire has a population of over 800,000 while Cornwall has a population of less than 600,000. Our nearest hospital (in the County) is in Chesterfield or Derby. Chesterfield is a good hour away and Derby even further, while the major centres in neighbouring counties are Manchester or Sheffield both of which are a good one and a half hour’s drive from us and accessible only via either the Snake Pass, Woodhead Pass or the country’s highest motorway the M62. During bad winter weather, all these Pennine routes become impassable. I wouldn’t think too many people in Cornwall have to keep winter tyres and snow chains for their vehicles for the winter - but we do.

EVERY rural area has difficulties but the common theme on MN for a few weeks has been Cornish people constantly grumbling about people visiting their county with blunt ‘Keep Away’ messages or conversely moaning about loss of tourists money. My point is - ITS NOT JUST YOU!

Yes, you have pretty bays and beaches but so do lots of other places in the UK. The Gower peninsular in South Wales is a designated area of outstanding natural beauty and stunningly beautiful. As I said earlier, Northumberland’s beaches are wonderful. The added bonus is that everything is cheaper in the NE, prices are not over inflated and the local people are warm and welcoming.

@merrymouse thinks that a lot of people are ‘obsessed with going to Cornwall’. I have, truthfully, never understood why. We’ve been once in the last forty years and never again. If we went into a shop we had the distinct impression that the owners and local people in the shop could barely wait for us to get out - after we’d spent our money of course. For those of us with dogs, it must be the most anti dog place in the UK. We found eating in any pub was extortionately expensive and dogs were not welcome anywhere. It was all pretentious ’gastro ‘ this and ‘deli’ that.

We mostly holiday in Italy - my husband is Italian, he was born in Naples - and the Amalfi Coast is breathtakingly beautiful. We are so missing it this year. Everyone’s opinions are personal and subjective but in my humble opinion your Porthcurno can’t compete in the beauty stakes with Praiano or Positano.

However, in terms of the UK we will always keep away from Cornwall so we are a couple of tourists you don’t have to worry about invading or using your hospital! 😂😂