Sick of some Cornish people bleating on as though they are the worlds only tourist destination

[Endlesssummer2022]

Just read the article below and found a few gems such as these:

’ have you ever wondered where the local people live? Or have you noticed that many of your holiday neighbours are recognisable in the narrow lanes of the pretty fishing villages because they are the same people you live near in London?’

and…

‘Despite what you may have read, we Cornish do welcome visitors and are happy to share our love of our land with you. But it might help if you do a bit of research – Cornwall is fiercely independent and has a proud and unique history and heritage…* *And try not to be rude to local people. If you’ve been asked to not drink from a glass bottle on the beach, there is a reason for that. Don’t forget to tip waiting staff. ‘

What patronising bollocks. So Londoner’s (as those are apparently the only people who visit Cornwall) are so untraveled and boorish we need to be told not to be rude to people, pay tips, not to smash glass bottles in sand, that we’ve bought all of their houses, that it’s ‘their’ land and we’re the ones who are rude?

I’d already decided I wouldn’t go back there after how some of them carried on during Covid but this article has pissed me off. Why would anyone go there when they can go to equally lovely places in the UK/World and not be treated with contempt?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/29/welcome-to-cornwall-please-dont-ruin-it-for-us-local-people

Whose fault is that? It's the owners of the house. How are tourists meant to know that a tenant has been kicked out?

I was in Port Isaac a few weeks ago. It was lovely. People were friendly. But wandering around the town you could see that pretty much every single house was a holiday let. Of course tenants must have been turned out. You don’t have to be a genius to work it out. The entire place has been turned into a tourist playground. I can’t imagine there’s anything left for locals other than low-paid seasonal work. It’s a tragedy to see a community treated like this, and then to have tourists turning up and behaving in the ways described in this thread is the final indignity.

I see a certain hotel in Mawgan Porth and a certain UK retailer whose name rhymes with Sparks & Mencer have their PR people watching this thread.
Let’s hope they actually took note of what was said, which was 100% true. Appalling service in both cases.

The truth is that many British people treat places they visit like middens- in Northumberland yesterday I saw a couple in their 20s screw up fast food packaging and throw it, with two cans, from their car window in a car park overlooking a beach. There was a bin about 30feet away. DH picked it up and put it in the bin and said something - they didn't look bothered.

The roads to coastal towns and villages are lined with verges covered in litter thrown from cars. Our local council has just put an extra 50 huge bins along the seafront and two have been set on fire and ruined within a week by people dumping still lit barbecues in them. The beaches at the end of a Bank holiday are disgusting-absolutely piled with rubbish; plastic bags and bottles, nappies, alcohol bottles and cans, takeaway drinks cups, sweet papers, crisp packets, fastfood containers, smoking litter. We were on the prom last summer and saw people urinating and defecating behind the beach cafe in the dunes thinking no one could see them- there are toilets but there was a long queue.The seafront is a 3 mile stretch of bumper to bumper cars on Bank holidays. People couldn't give a toss about the environment- they go home and expect it all to be cleaned up by someone else or washed away by the sea.

Except Cornwall is in England just like everywhere else in England.

Amen to this.

There seems to be an assumption that people change their behaviour or personality when they are on holiday when in fact there are (unfortunately) a minority of twatty and anti-social idiots everywhere, and so will behave in an unpleasant way whilst on holiday.

Unfortunately many do.
That’s why British people have such a bad name in other countries.

I agree they are a minority compared to the rest of us but there’s still too many of them.

People are not only treating their own country like shit, but other countries too - Spain, Greece, Cyprus etc whose economies depend on tourism so they can’t afford to be as arsed as the Cornish.

The real question is why is antisocial behaviour now a way of life here?

wow lol bloody hell, I am Cornish, from that town, still live there and I know all about the London congestion charge and ULEZ rules as I don't live in a bubble. We have internet/newspapers down here you know and some of us cross the border a few times a year.

Don't hate tourists but don't go very far all through July and August as the roads are carnage. Our roads aren't able to cope with the amount of traffic the summer season brings. I think Cornwall has become too popular and we have the holiday makers themselves moaning about it being over-touristy. It's a really hard balance to strike.
There are at least nine holiday lets in my street now and our Saturday's are now graced with suitcase wheels, car doors being slammed multiple times whilst people unload/load up, moans about nowhere to park, ooohs and ahhhs about how 'I'd like a house in this street - although actually the parking is hopeless and I'd have to learn how to parallel park hahaha' type conversations.
I was awoken at six thirty last Saturday by a revving engine, soon followed by slamming doors and then the guy shouting into the house opposite, 'Have you emptied the fridge yet? What was that? What did you say? oh! well, get it done!' They finally left at 8am just in time for the next lot of car doors slamming to begin for two doors up. I gave up the idea of a lie in at that point. You just need to be a considerate visitor, if you are staying on a residential street be quiet and respectful of the locals around you. This is our reality every changeover day now and it's tiresome when you've worked all week, and its certainly not how I behave when I visit another area.

If you don't behave like this then you're not being patronised.

Sadly there are many people who do, so they need to be addressed like the thick boors they are.

Don't take it personally. I don't.

But I'm not sure why anyone thinks these are all people who are decent citizens in their own towns...? The people who behave unpleasantly on holiday are probably morons all year round not just for 2 weeks at a time!
I live in a fairly non touristy commuter town. There are people here who don't give way in local country lanes , who park blocking drives or gates or turning spaces. There is lots of fly tipping in lanes around the town, people drop litter etc My sister works in a shop, there are plenty of rude customers there....

@Mirabai

"Except Cornwall is in England just like everywhere else in England"

++++

And perhaps this is the heart of it. The English treat Cornwall as no different than any other part of England whereas the Cornish most definitely do not see themselves as English (British yes but English no).

This simple cultural misunderstanding creates further misunderstandings and animosity.

I go to Cornwall every year. The locals are unfailing lovely.

I don’t ever stay in one of the legion of Air bnb’s that has pushed locals out of their home towns. I have found locals do ask where you’re staying, perhaps that makes a difference 🤷🏻‍♀️

I grew up on a touristy place. Seemed normal to me so wasnt fussed by it other than teenage tourists were always very loud. My mum was always cursing the tourists.

My parents moved to another touristy spot where they ran a hotel so were part of the tourist economy. Now retired they still bitch about DFLs (Down From London) which 100% translates as 'richer than me with a bigger car and with a bigger group of friends to holiday with'. My parents would very much fit in with Cornwall's residents!

I've not been to Cornwall - who wants to queue in a car that long to be somewhere so expensive, packed when it might rain anyway?

What's the solution? Off the top of my head, perhaps the residents could vote for councillors who would approve the building of affordable housing for locals, increase council tax for second home owners, impose a tourist tax, improve the infrastructure. But they don't for reasons unknown. I saw a news article recently about new mining and tech companies moving to Cornwall, bringing in new work opportunities - and still they were moaning.

Seems I had much to say in Cornwall tgan I thought!

We have had to clean human poo up off the pavements and from in flower beds in tourist season. Human poo

Yah another Cornwall resident here, can confirm the shitting on the beach thing is really getting out of hand.

@SemperIdem

"I have found locals do ask where you’re staying, perhaps that makes a difference 🤷🏻‍♀️"

+++

Yes it most definitely does and it is a shame that there aren't more thoughtful visitors like you coming to Cornwall. Hope you enjoyed it and please please come back.

It’s a geographical fact that Cornwall is in England. Whether Cornish regard themselves as British or English is moot.

Is it the equivalent of us Londoners telling tourists not to stand on the left, not to stop at the top of the escalator, not to talk on the tube and not to p… in the street after a drink?

@Mirabai

"It’s a geographical fact that Cornwall is in England. Whether Cornish regard themselves as British or English is moot."

+++

Actually it's not a moot point as under the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCPNM) and since 2014 it is a political fact that Cornish are recognised as a national minority and the same status as the Scots, Welsh and Irish and are most definitely not English.

Whether the English regard the Welsh, Scots or Cornish is down to their own ignorance of political and historical facts.

www.cornwall.gov.uk/people-and-communities/equality-and-diversity/cornish-national-minority/

That isn't London prices. You can pay £1300 for a room.

I just looked at the stats. Cornwall (as in a whole county of 600k people) gets just over 5m tourist visitors per year. My v small city in England with population a quarter of that gets over 7.5m.

In the summer, in fact all year but particularly then, it’s v busy going into the city centre as I have to as a local but I have literally never heard anyone complain about tourists in the way some Cornish people do. My small city also massively outperforms economically and no one is complaining about being independent from the UK. The city is also v expensive and most locals can’t afford it.

some people seem to think the situation in Cornwall is somehow so unique when it’s really not. Maybe look around and open your eyes.

This happens in my local park in the summer. In London.

It is in the sense that I meant which is whether a Cornish person calls themselves English or British is up to them. Just as it’s up to a NI citizen whether they call themselves Irish, N.Irish or British. And how do you define Cornish - genetic or geographic? There are separate genetic groups in both Cornwall and Devon, but Cornish are more similar to other English groups genetically than to the Welsh or the Scottish.

Ffs, that is literally what they said they do. What's wrong with you?

There is a big difference between tourists visiting large cities, and those visiting scenic small places. I very much doubt London has the kind of issues we have where I live.

I’ve thrown rubbish back into peoples cars when they’ve thrown it out.
“ oh look you seem to have dropped something”.