So when can we go to second homes do you reckon

[frillyfucks]

I've seen holiday cottages available to book from 4th July, but when can we as one household move from our first home to our second home for a change of scenery?

I've resisted so far as one of our neighbours down there is older and very cautious about the virus but I'm desperate to get down there, do some gardening, enjoy the place again.

We're in the position of having a place in a building that has a management company. It is lived in permanently by lots of old folk. None of them have had covid. The other half of the flats are owned as second homes. There is already a them and us thing, they hate us being there with all our kids, yet need our management fee money for upkeep of the sea defences etc. We had an email last week saying 'the law says you cant come, see link from the police below'. Which was basically, come here and we'll call the police.

As soon as we're allowed to go, we're there. If they start saying we cant go because of the old folk blah blah, then we'll stop paying the management fee. This is Cornwall which needs our money, but doesnt want us. Tricky for them.

i think everyone has a different viewpoint on this.

i also think the second home issue is more of a long standing resentment using the mask of covid to hit back.

i live/rent in a hub of tourist/second homes and i honestly can't say second-homers have ever made me uncomfortable . it just doesn't bother me . they keep the place lovely and i don't feel any resentment.

if i didnt already live here, i'd like to be able to buy a holiday home here, too..

i understand the larger, societal issue of which second homes are a feature, but on an individual, personal level, i think they've been given a lot of flack during this past few months and have been singled out unfairly.

cornwall might be different to lake district, perhaps there are more of them?

i don't know .

i'm more confused by people crowding on beach day trips to be honest, and shitting in their sandcastles 😂

(i do not include or defend the comings & goings of dom cummings in this argument 😁)

Such a tiny % of people have second homes, I dont know why its become an issue other than as you say, it's a chance to do some shouting in the street under covid cover.

I lived in a tourist city for years, I dont like tourist season, but that's how the place was so nice to live in so...

If it's in Wales then it's still illegal to come and do don't. We don't have the health infrastructure here to cope with an influx of people.

Just tell the locals you've travelled straight from Heathrow. International arrivals have always been allowed to travel. Lockdown has never applied to them.

@pfrench

Such a tiny % of people have second homes, I dont know why its become an issue other than as you say, it's a chance to do some shouting in the street under covid cover.

I lived in a tourist city for years, I dont like tourist season, but that's how the place was so nice to live in so...

This.

But lots of people did indeed leave large urban areas just before lockdown (or during it).
They were returning locals those who'd moved away to put pressure on city resources. From students to young professionals to families to MPs.

I don't get why this isn't allowed tbh. You're allowed to drive as far you like now, what difference does it make of you sleep in a different house?

@oysterbabe Did you see the earlier post about pressure on rural health services?

That's why.

Also, if it's Wales, it"s still illegal to travel here.

Maybe drive 60 miles to test your eyesight first.

[quote Abitofhelplease]@oysterbabe Did you see the earlier post about pressure on rural health services?

That's why.

Also, if it's Wales, it"s still illegal to travel here.[/quote]
Yep. Pressure on urban health resources is fine. Rural areas need more protection because they vote Conservative...

The idea of putting pressure on local health services if you travel to your holiday home does not hold up for me

I have a place in a beautiful/rural area. I usually go most weekends and for the odd week when I can. I can social distance there very effectively. Covid does not strike immediately like a thunderbolt. You have several days of feeling shitter and shitter before you get to the point of needing critical care (average 7-10 days after first symptoms appear)

I would simply go home to my primary residence if that were to happen.

Getting a tad sick of people living in Cornwall who think they can just close their non-existent borders to everyone else. You're no different to any other place in the country.

If rural healthcare really is an issue, then petition for your local CCG's to plan better in the summer months. Don't take it out on other people who just want to holiday and bolster your local economy.

.. and I don't even want to go to Cornwall, but I've found the attitude really selfish these past few weeks.

Well at the moment we still can’t stay away overnight so I’d say no

I’ve got an air bnb booking for July 20th and really hoping to get away

Completely agree @anyfucker we're not the great unwashed' and therefore likely to carry more COVID.

Also, do you not think that city centre type healthcare is far more overrun, given the sheer numbers of people it has to support, the fact people live in closer quarters? And yet, if people in rural settings are so ill, those urban settings wouldn't question transfers into them.

@bitheby

If it's in Wales then it's still illegal to come and do don't. We don't have the health infrastructure here to cope with an influx of people.

Presumably you'd still like second home owners to pay their council tax during their 'enforced' absence?

As if rural dwellers don't come to our towns and cities, and expect to use our specialist healthcare services. Cheek of it!

Probably July if other holiday places open if you stay overnight but if you are just going for one day then it’s just a day out so now.

Yep, straight away if your instincts tell you. Make sure at least one of you is symptomatic and if your eyes are a bit dodgy due to the virus drive a bit further to make them better.

Did you see the earlier post about pressure on rural health services?

Well the second home I'm thinking of is in a city. My inlaws live in Devon and have they have a second home in the city where we live. Them moving to there for a while will ease the pressure on rural health services. If I was them I wouldn't hesitate but they are rule followers, which is fair enough.

@WhatsHappeningCaroleBaskin not really, the South West have coped brilliantly with Covid and have not reached capacity at all..
City hospitals are bigger to cope with more people.

If it's in a holiday area I would wait until holidays are allowed, personally. I'm from a rural, coastal area with a lot of second homes. I no longer live there, but my parents do. In the initial stages of the virus epidemic they had no cases in that area - literally zero. Late March they suddenly had a cluster and my parents confirmed that there were cars outside second homes belonging to people who had clearly fled areas with the virus before they were locked down. Most second home owners in the area from London, so that fits as a hypothesis.

Bottom line - stay where you are for now. You may be entitled to visit your second home as you own it and pay council tax, etc, in that area, but you could, unwittingly infect/reinfect an area with low or no cases and cause a further outbreak. Many coastal areas have a lot of retired year-round residents who are extra vulnerable. Be kind and considerate, please.

i also think the second home issue is more of a long standing resentment using the mask of covid to hit back.

This.

It’s impossible to have a sensible conversation about it without seething resentment seeping out.

Herons post says it all really. So much for ‘everyone’s so friendly once you get out of London’

[quote Hugglespuffed]@WhatsHappeningCaroleBaskin not really, the South West have coped brilliantly with Covid and have not reached capacity at all..
City hospitals are bigger to cope with more people.[/quote]
Yet strangely it was the apparently better resourced London hospitals that didn't cope. It was only there where the ambulance service had to temporarily change the threshold for admittance.

I'm from a rural, coastal area with a lot of second homes.
So you've moved to a city to add to the under pressure resources there.

Bottom line - stay where you are for now.
Write to the government and ask them to change policy if that's what you want.
Currently people are allowed to travel. Particularly if they're international airport arrivals.

Why do you expect special treatment for the Tory voting rural areas? Because of how they vote? London didn't magically become infected. People from elsewhere brought it in. Likewise other cities.

Many coastal areas have a lot of retired year-round residents who are extra vulnerable
Not as many as London has. Over one million vulnerable elderly there.

There's an article in the Telegraph, that well-known anti-establishment paper, on critical care beds and regional capacity in England.

Here are two quotes from it:
"London has 30 per cent more critical care capacity than the much more elderly south west of the country, for example."

"The south west looks most vulnerable in terms of ratios. It has the oldest population (so highest expected mortality) and lowest number of critical care beds per head of population."

www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/huge-regional-differences-intensive-care-bed-numbers-threaten/

I actually don’t see the difference now that you can drive as far as you like for a day out - what’s the difference if you stay overnight in your own property? There’s an argument you’d be less of a risk as lots of people would avoid busy areas such as beaches and stick to the house, own bathroom etc. Government was crazy not to put some restriction on distance you can travel for time outside.

As an aside, I heard that there was some discussion between Cornwall council and government about allowing second home owners to stay but not to permit holiday rentals, as a compromise between lockdown and no business and flooding tourist areas with holidaymakers..