To say please don't go to your second home

[Beesisabuzzin]

With talk of London going into lockdown tomorrow can I remind second home owners that Cornwall has one hospital. Devon has four hospitals. Where I live in Devon there is no food in any of the supermarkets. Please, please stay away, our communities cannot deal with an influx.

Even in the heavily populated south-east, things aren't much better (2 hospitals in E Sussex, 3 in W Sussex, one in Brighton), so please don't come here either!

Health provision is based on the full-time population, so if people start fleeing the cities for rural areas, rural services will quickly become overwhelmed.

Stay at home, people!

They are better off staying in London. The rules are going to be the same everywhere at some point and the infrastructure in rural/coastal areas is inadequate at the best of times

what a good and sensible thread.

Having seen what happened in Italy it would be totally selfish and irresponsible for people to relocate to rural and coastal areas.

Don’t be that person!

Good luck with this plea. IMO the type of person to own a second home is not the type to consider wider welfare...

Had an argument with my other half about it but cancelled our holiday to Cornwall for a week tomorrow. I was so looking forward to it but I hear you all. And we should not be spreading the virus.

Devon - shortages, all entertainment cancelled, it's rained almost every day this year and it still is. Our transport links are poor, including freight deliveries.
We support our communities. Coming down now will get you ostracised.

You are all correct, of course, but sadly wasting your breath.

We are not going to our second home and definitely staying in London. Why would anyone go somewhere with fewer doctors, ITU beds etc at this point?

They are already arriving in North Wales, coming to their static caravans and tiny cottages or flats, surely they would be more comfortable in their house.
They were pleading on the news last night for 2nd home owners not to come here.

How people can live with themselves knowing full well they can kill people is beyond me.

Yes!!!! I'm in Devon and work in healthcare, we cannot cope please please please don't cor down.

I live in the east and we have 'Chelsea on Sea' resorts up here such as Aldeburgh and Southwold where London-based second home owners have bought up many of the homes. Our regional TV news said the two towns are already experiencing an increase in people coming to stay. Withe the closure of schools and better weather coming it will be hell for the local resident population.

What @whatthefoxgoingon said. Why would anyone be stupid enough to leave London right now? Less hospitals less infrastructure and less shops.

Agreed. I saw an especially stupid item on BBC look East News last night about how marvellous it was for the Southwold economy that people were temporarily relocating from London to their second homes.

Kindly sharing their bounty and their organisms with the proles.

Agreed - and it’s not just selfish, the people who do go to places like Cornwall will be overloading the system and therefore making it unavailable to themselves as well as local residents.

And yes, they will be ostracised. Local shops are planning to ask for proof of residence and any community schemes are hardly likely to prioritise selfish 2nd home owners.

That’s all quite apart from the fact that we’re trying to limit the spread of the virus not bloody spread huge festering piles of it round the whole of the U.K.! That will make killing it off a whole lot harder.

Who the hell are the 9% who disagree??

Same in Wales . We have lowest number of ICU beds in the UK. North Wales also seems to have some of the lowest Covid infection rates in the UK, lets keep it that way!

Same thing is happening in North Wales. My family live in a small village and apparently it is now overrun with mainly elderly holiday home owners and they are emptying the only 2 small supermarkets. The nearest hospital is 45 minutes away, what on earth are they thinking. Please stay home.

My area on the coast has one of the biggest caravan sites in the UK and a lot are owners, our population almost doubles every summer with an influx of people from the city, I hope they don’t descend on us before the lockdown, we only have a couple of small supermarkets which have been picked clean the last couple of days by locals, a small health centre and a medium sized hospital 15 miles away.

I also meant to add that lots of people travelling to second homes will mean Lockdown will come a lot quicker.

Not good.

Same in South Wales, we have the least beds, the poorest funded hospitals and in South Wales it is already getting bad. Think of the poor healthcare workers.

After seeing the entitlement of shoppers who think only of themselves I'm afraid your pleas will fall on deaf ears. I totally agree with you though.

Local shops are planning to ask for proof of residence and any community schemes are hardly likely to prioritise selfish 2nd home owners

Good! I know the local shop in my Mum’s village will find ways to look after residents before 2nd Homers. They already hate them because they don’t even shop there when they usually go there, they order a Waitrose delivery to co-incide with their arrival. And just pop to the shops for a packet of artisan crisps to warble in about ‘local produce’.

Very sensible point and I totally agree OP. Sadly the selfish among us may not listen...