If you're from Cornwall, how do you personally feel about tourists and second home owners?

[Beerlovingwalker]

Genuinely curious really, as an outsider that loves Cornwall.

On the one hand, it must be nice to know that so many people love the beauty of your county and I'm sure it's nice to share it. However, it also must be difficult to adjust from living fairly quietly in the Autumn/winter months, to suddenly have to share your space with so many million tourists and second home owners in the summer.

Respect is a two way street. I’m certain that although there will be some dicks, the vast majority of incomers don’t act like the Bullingdon Club on tour.

I agree. Plus, you don't necessarily know in some of the towns that your 'tourists' aren't from nearby Cornish villages anyway. We've heard a lot about all of the tourists bringing in COVID, but has every single Cornish person stayed doggedly inside Cornwall for the whole duration?

I can see that there are a lot of issues in Cornwall - as everywhere - and some may be caused/exacerbated by tourists; others may be closer to home. However, I don't think the mindset that a lot seem to have that it's the tourists causing all of Cornwall's problems is helping anybody. If you live in a beautiful place, you can't expect your fellow Brits not to notice or to ignore it and to leave it exclusively for you.

Places like Jaywick and Blackburn don't seem to be suffering at all from the same amount of tourism and holiday-home buyers, but they have plenty of different problems to contend with. In some of the big cities, teenagers are murdered by other teenagers and it doesn't even shock people any more.

You're at liberty to travel to Bristol, Cardiff, London, further afield at will. Even if you don't go there personally, all of us from smaller places benefit from the international financial power, industry, infrastructure (that only works with enormous, dense populations) - and, yes, also tourism, of the big cities.

If you genuinely don't want to be a part of this - the good and the bad - you need to get together and campaign for independence. If that is what you want, I for one would wish you well and support you in it, although I'd personally very much prefer us all to stay together.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Letting the cottage out to tourists so registering as a business is a way of avoiding council tax on second homes in some areas.

I may well be wrong, but don't you have to either pay council tax OR business rates, based on your average number of letting weeks each year (not sure if actual weeks booked or just weeks offered/advertised as available) - and neither is especially cheaper than the other?

If you call it a business but turn over less than £12k then business rates are nil. Various fiddles are available to pretend that it is advertised for 140 days a year without actually accepting any bookings. Some were even claiming the Covid support intended for bona fide businesses. HMRC say that 57,600 properties are involved in this fiddle. The Covid grant situation has at least awakened the taxman to what is going on and it is likely that they will crack down upon it.

DdraigGoch

Ah, thanks for clarifying that. That is very wrong and definitely needs to be clamped down on. I would say that, even though second-home owners won't be using a lot of the facilities that it pays for, they should pay at least the equivalent to full council tax - as if they didn't live there (bearing in mind they already have a main residence), that house could well be 'earning' a full council tax contribution to add to the essential local pot.

Tourists are very welcome, though! So long as they behave themselves properly: spend into the local economy

Happy to behave properly but don’t want to feel obliged to pay for expensive luxuries.

If I want to do a self-catering holiday with a shop at the supermarket, surely that’s no one’s business?

@101spacehoppers

It's always been incredibly expensive to eat out in Cornwall though. My parents hardly ever did it. It used to be lack of competition ('London prices' are in my experience cheaper, but appreciate we may not be talking about the same London), now it may be price inflation. I don't think a new 'foodie' culture is a bad thing, locals enjoy it too and there are plenty of cornish run businesses and it gives some year round economy.

Bude, Falmouth, St Ives are all weird bubbles and you can't generalise from them to the rest of the county. Plenty of fishermen necking flat whites where I'm from.

Restaurants in cities make their money year-round so don't have to have high prices in the seven months when they do make money to provide an income for the remaining five.

I moved to Cornwall in the 80's bringing with me a successful business which continued to flourish in the dark depths of Cornwall. I married a Cornishman and my kids are proudly Cornish. Both attended excellent local state schools and colleges and have good jobs. The youngest worries about buying a home as they continue to spiral but that is probably the same in most areas of Uk.

There are some vibrant industries here, I hate the generalisations of the Cornish being this inward looking mass of non-achievers it's really not the Cornwall I know.

Second home owners have not covered themselves in glory recently, as mentioned, the 10k grants claimed by second home owners was a disgrace.

My mums village is deserted for most of the year. They've lost the post office and the bus route. The houses, when sold are then turned into building sites while the new owners unsympathetically attempt to convert a pokey 2 bed fishing cottage into something resembling a Lego box with glass everywhere.

With regard to locals selling their homes are you really expecting someone to not take say, £600,000? You'd turn that down and offer Mr and Mrs Curnow the property for £75,000? Of course you wouldn't and nor would an executor. That's a ridiculous victim blame game if ever I've heard it.

But the only way to stop second home ownership is by preventing exactly those sort of sales. No use crying about second homes if you're actively supplying the market.

It's not the locals fault that their house in ye olde Cornish village is in such high demand though is it? They haven't created that demand actively or inactively.

I was born and grew up in South Devon. I would love a second home there and could afford it but don't get one because I see my nieces and nephews who still live there struggle to buy a home there. Instead I stay with one of my sisters when I visit. Sometimes my 2 older sons stay with 1 sister and DH and younger child stay with a second sister. It would be convenient to own a second home there.

@SixesAndEights

Is Council Tax on second homes still lower than normal? Personally, I think it should be double to compensate for the damage they do.

I think it is in Gwynedd in North Wales.

There may be a long term benefit to covid 18 as more second home owners can work from home. We now have a lifestyle which splits our time 50/50 between our homes. I’m sure others are benefiting in a similar way.

People buy houses in London to live in them.

Not necessarily true, many want a pied-a-terre in London while having their main residence in the Cotswolds or whatever.

There are plenty of year round restaurants in Cornwall. I spent my teenage years waitressing in them, including through the winter (unless I imagined that?). Ime if you're local you wait until after August until you go out for the evening anyway, or you won't get a reservation.

Places like Da Bara bakery can't keep their stuff on the shelves, including in winter and I know all that trade isn't tourist trade. It's weird, this characterising of any change as all driven by tourists. Like there's a reluctance to acknowledge any home grown endeavour or Cornish spending power. My dad is as cornish as you like but bloody loves a deli.

@AgeLikeWine

“That really isn’t the same thing. People buy houses in London to live in them. The issue in Cornwall is that locals are priced out of buying houses which sit empty for the vast majority of the year. That’s what causes so much resentment.”

Hahaha! You think Londoners don’t understand that, given most of central London is owned and sitting empty and the other half is rental?

@CounsellorTroi

People buy houses in London to live in them.

Not necessarily true, many want a pied-a-terre in London while having their main residence in the Cotswolds or whatever.

Yes my last two moves were into flats owned by people outside London who just used them when they popped up to see a show.

Hah no people do not buy houses in London to live in them. That's why prices are so mad, not because we all eat gold for breakfast. Many of the issues on our local high street- banks closed, post office closed, cheaper shops replaced by fancy homewares shops- are the same.

I don't know why people are so reluctant to see the similarities. It's the same structural issue with the housing market.

But there's not the same sympathy for priced out Londoners that there is for Cornish villages

I don’t think there is much sympathy for Cornish people either. Certainly not on threads like these.

Posters from elsewhere tell Cornish residents that we are arrogant, unwelcoming, rely on their tourist pound so should damned well be grateful, that the weather and countryside aren’t all that anyway so why would anyone want to come here, and that we caused our own problems by selling houses to second home investors in the first place.

The usual polarisation of an argument on social media:

The Cornish are insular and deserve to be priced out because when they sell to a second homer owner they don’t make this enquiry a condition of sale and then only accept £300,000 less from a local. Because London has similar issues in housing costs they can’t moan about the impact on the Cornish social infrastructure such as schools.

All incomers and second home owners are Londoners bringing Covid and dominating the economy to their advantage. All Londoners break lockdown, cheat the taxes and live a life of luxury in their swanky pads in London.

Or...some areas of the country are a beautiful place to reside hence tourism. However the season is short and the infrastructure collapses under the weight of tourism for that season and the disappearance of that economy in the winter caused by second home owners doesn’t support a community.

But you live somewhere beautiful.

I see the same argument played out on a Scottish forum. If I was a second home owner I’d accept that I was contributing to the death of a community (I would be and no amount of denying is going to change that). I wouldn’t cheat taxes. If I can afford a second home I’m not going to spend my time ensuring people worse off are deprived of the benefit of rightful taxation to support their economy. If I sold my house I’d sell to the highest bidder (because every person alive would and blaming this for the national issue of communities without residents is utterly daft).

Second home ownership needs greater taxation because currently our society has a number of people in poverty whether in London or Cornwall. This is a tragedy because poverty leads to many social issues. If you can afford two houses you can afford to care about other people.

Enough houses should be ring fenced in a community to allow it to support local facilities. Whether London, Cornwall or the outer Hebrides.

@eliope actually, there are schemes here where that does happen. Houses can only be sold to locals. It seems to work well, you buy a house knowing that and sell the house knowing that. It keeps the industry going. I think there can be a situation as they have installed in St Ives where certain homes cannot be sold to second home owners. That way it can be split between those living in Cornwall and those profiting. It can be done, it’s not about victim blaming but about reaching a compromise.

My problem with living here is that with tourism increasing AND more people moving into the county, we are not supporting new infrastructure. Treliske can not cope. We have seen that every summer with elderly people left laying on floors for 8 hours for an ambulance. We need to spend money, not on the space industry, but on sorting transportation, medical care etc.

Still think a second-home tax would be good... the money could go towards building affordable local housing. You take a house away from local people, you should contribute towards building another one.

Oh yes, let’s build more poor quality rabbit hutches houses and destroy the landscape and environment still further. Great idea. And there shouldn’t be second home taxes or massive disincentives for buying them as another poster suggested - they should be banned altogether.

Airbnb and holiday lets should also be massively restricted - it’s depressing when every other house is a holiday cottage, as is the case in some Cornish towns.

Agree @Dongdingdong, there should be limitations. Porthleven, Charlestown etc are majority holiday or second homes and it’s really sad to see.

The main problem seems to be lack of jobs. But the government has never been interested in putting in much infrastructure for jobs outside of London (apart from media in Manchester).
I’m not convinced all jobs will be WFH forever , though, I think the trend will move back when they look at how well people are working.

I have a friend who is on a family farm in N Yorks. Opposite then is a large chocolate box thatched cottage owned as a second home. They only come for 2 weeks in summer (they tried Christmas but didn’t like the weather). My friend hates them. They come and like to announce their arrival, are rude and loud for 2 weeks and then leave. Problem is it’s not the kind of place suitable for a young couple or someone who farms. So who else is going to buy it.

Oh yes, let’s build more poor quality rabbit hutches houses and destroy the landscape and environment still further. Great idea. And there shouldn’t be second home taxes or massive disincentives for buying them as another poster suggested - they should be banned altogether

Parts of Cornwal have been so heavily built upon, the danger is that what people come to cornwall for is being destroyed.

The damage with 2nd homes has already been done, many 2nd homes aren't suitable for first time buyers, nor can people be made to sell at below market rates.

All that can be done now is to crak down on CT loop holes and have 4 or 500% CT rates for homes that are either not rented out for 9 months of the year or lived in for the same period.

This would at least mean money can go into local services and would act as a disincentive for new 2nd home buyers, if 500% doesn't limit 2nd homes, up it further.

Draconian? yes but unless Govt acts quickly parts of the UK will not have enough essential workers, such as teachers, nurses etc.

I live on the outskirts of a village that’s blighted by second home owners and ex-Londoners commuting to Bristol, Bath or London or along the M4 corridor.
They contribute zilch to the local community but whinge and complain about the church bells, tractors, not being able to park their huge SUVs, the local tiny shop not being Waitrose quality and the lanes being so narrow.
It’s compounded by two local mega business landowners snapping up any vacant properties for their ‘staff vacations’ and wedding businesses.
I would love to move but can’t afford it.

@FakeColinCaterpillar

The main problem seems to be lack of jobs. But the government has never been interested in putting in much infrastructure for jobs outside of London (apart from media in Manchester). I’m not convinced all jobs will be WFH forever , though, I think the trend will move back when they look at how well people are working.

I have a friend who is on a family farm in N Yorks. Opposite then is a large chocolate box thatched cottage owned as a second home. They only come for 2 weeks in summer (they tried Christmas but didn’t like the weather). My friend hates them. They come and like to announce their arrival, are rude and loud for 2 weeks and then leave. Problem is it’s not the kind of place suitable for a young couple or someone who farms. So who else is going to buy it.

A proper holiday let would be better - let out for the majority of the year. That would at least bring income to the area.