Inequality in Devon and Cornwall

[GraceJonesBiggestFan]

So there have been a lot of threads about moving to the South West recently. Many including people who have moved down and criticised the local people for being insular or lacking aspiration. Many also including comments from people like me who are offended at the suggestion and have tried to explain why local people might feel incredibly upset at the awful inequality in Devon and Cornwall, and frustrated with the lack of empathy shown by people who’ve moved down with a ton of money.

So I thought I’d break it down on a new thread, so it’s not something personal against individual posters seeking advice.

The TLDR is this www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-61241981

My family have lived within the same 2 villages for over 500 years. In that time they were all collectively employed by the local landowner (Clinton Devon Estates, in various iterations over the years). They all worked as farm labourers, domestic service, blacksmiths etc. They never owned property because a) they would never have earned enough and b) they had housing provided as part of their remuneration. It was hard work, but to be fair to Lord and Lady Clinton they gave jobs for life and when for example my Grandad retired, he was able to continue living in his family house for a peppercorn rent.

My grandparents were both very sharp, but both worked from the age of 12/14 to put food on the table. So no opportunities for betterment. My Dad is very clever, but there was no way his parents could afford the additional tuition for his 11 plus, so he left school at 14 to work as a labourer. My sisters and I were all recognised by our primary school teachers as being more than capable of going to the local grammar, but the bus there was £60 a term and the uniform £120. There was absolutely no way my parents could afford this. I spent much of my childhood growing up in a caravan in a field, but still achieved 11 As and A*s at GCSE (back then this was incredibly unusual).

The kids in my class who went to the grammar school and then went on to university were entirely the children of parents who had moved down from the South East. Their parents sold houses in London, bought what seemed like a mansion in Devon. They paid for their children to have additional tuition to pass the entrance exams, paid for them to do music, sports and language lessons. Supported them financially to go to university and do unpaid internships.

I don’t begrudge them this at all. If I had the means, I would do the same for my daughter.

But I hope it in some way explains why it’s not a “lack of aspiration” that holds people here back. The inequality in Devon and Cornwall is horrific and has gotten unbearably worse in the last 2 years. People recognise inner-city poverty and deprivation, but the poverty and inequality in Devon and Cornwall is statistically much worse. Consider that if you live in poverty in London, you at least have access to many universities and can continue to live at home rent free. If you grow up in Devon or Cornwall, your options for studying and living at home are much more limited. Most people born and bred here therefore earn minimum wage. Their parents weren’t home owners themselves (so no help with buying), but are now competing with people who have grown up in the South East with all the opportunities for social mobility there are there, with all the equity from their home ownership, with much higher wages etc.

I see it now again. The kids with the rich parents who moved down during the pandemic, now lining up a ton of extra-curricular activities so their child again gets the grammar school places. The local kids left behind to be laughed at as “lacking aspiration”. The parents in their cars that cost more than most people here will earn in 8 years. The wellies that cost more than my own car. The music, sports and language lessons that cost more than most parents receive in universal credit. Getting turfed out to live in B&Bs because your landlords selling up (for extortionate London prices) or turning your home into an air bnb. We’re not “unfriendly” or “insular”, we’re just utterly heartbroken.

Gees no, we have Black Cornish, Asian Cornish... you are just showing how little you understand the nuances of the culture being bulldozed here.

Really no idea why these threads always turn into London v South West. I've lived in both, both have massive issues - some of which are the same (poverty, lack of access to opportunity for some, inequality, high house prices), some of which are different (e.g. in Cornwall and rural Devon there are often NO jobs above minimum wage in a 10 mile radius no matter how many qualifications you have, as PP have posted universities in London are often a short walk or cycle away & at worst you can go by tube which is cheap and quick while in Cornwall which takes 2 hours to cross there is one university and until recently none).

I don't know why we can't address problems in one area because some of the same issues crop up elsewhere. No, life in London is very much not easy for a lot of people - can we just accept that and talk about the SW now?

Can’t lie I don’t really understand the argument, because for someone to buy a second home in Cornwall a Cornish person must have been the first person to sell to an outsider and “profiteer”
surely if Cornish people really had the issues people are saying exist, worry about communities being decimated they’d not be happily flogging their homes to people who want it as a holiday home?
Have the locals not done it to themselves by being individually greedy? No one can buy a second home, rental, air b n b if a local didn’t originally sell it to them for that purpose, it’s not a compulsory purchase, the seller has a choice on who to sell it to.
why blame the folks buying? Why not blame your own community for doing this to itself? Aren’t all the locals to blame? If they only sold to locals then the issue would never have arisen.
the only reason so many holiday homes etc exist is because of all the local folks sold the properties to outsiders knowing they would be holiday homes.

This is exactly what I was gonna say @Kingharoldshairstyle - the hypocrisy of the locals is absolutely sickening. It reminds me specifically of the greedy french hoteliers who have a double sided price board that they turn over when the "foreigners" come in.

So still not two hours?

Also, the kids I knew in the West went to Cambourne and Falmouth, there are other options not just Truro.

In the 2011 census, the following results were given for ethnic identity.[1]: KS201EW_Percentages row 399  The option to describe ethnicity as Cornish was officially advertised within Cornwall, as well as tickboxes for English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish, and British on the census form; however, these were all amalgamated into White British for the purposes of the census results.[citation needed]
White (Cornish/English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British): 95.7%
White (Irish): 0.4%
White (Gypsy or Irish Traveller): 0.1%
White (Other White): 2.0%
Mixed (White and Black Caribbean): 0.2%
Mixed (White and Black African): 0.1%
Mixed (White and Asian): 0.3%
Mixed (Other Mixed): 0.2%
Asian/Asian British (Indian): 0.2%
Asian/Asian British (Pakistani): 0.0%
Asian/Asian British (Bangladeshi): 0.1%
Asian/Asian British (Chinese): 0.2%
Asian/Asian British (Other Asian): 0.2%
Black/African/Caribbean/Black British (African): 0.1%
Black/African/Caribbean/Black British (Caribbean): 0.1%
Black/African/Caribbean/Black British (Other Black): 0.0%
Other (Arab): 0.0%
Other (Other): 0.1%

That'll be Cornwall which is NINETY EIGHT PER CENT White.

Lol.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_Cornwall

They do in Cornwall too! Very different prices for incomers. Who would actually want to live there and be fleeced? Even incomers become Cornish eventually and complain about everyone else. Holiday makers contribute 35% of the Cornish economy. They aren’t going anywhere. Most people who live in expensive areas and cannot afford it have to move. Such is life. Some property is very cheap in Cornwall!

I'm sure the 0.6% of the Cornish population who identify as Asian, and the 0.2% who identify as Black, are very cut up about the 'bulldozing' of their ancestral homeland where their ancestors have lived for 500 years. Fucking hell. What an embarrassing thing for you to say.

By contrast

as at the 2011 Census, the most ethnically diverse region in England and Wales was London, where 40.2% of residents identified with either the Asian, Black, Mixed or Other ethnic group

out of all regions, London had the smallest percentage of White British people, at 44.9%, and the North East had the highest percentage, at 93.6%

8 out of the 10 most ethnically diverse local authorities were in London

I really hope for your sake that you're not going to try to double down on the really quite obvious untruth. It would be much better if you just admitted that it was utter bollocks.

Really no idea why these threads always turn into London v South West.

To be fair, it was the OP who initially mentioned London!

So it’s all the fault of the Cornish for selling their primary residence to those nasty outsiders who want holiday homes and Airbnbs? Well maybe to some extent, but most vendors need to maximize the income from the sale in order to be able to afford their next home, especially if divorcing couples who will each need a home, etc. Some sales will also be probate sales.

And when you sell your home, you cannot control what the new buyer does with it once you’ve completed. The house next door was bought by a retiring couple who then I didn’t arrive for two more years due to pension problems. So it was let out to a succession of tenants.

Exactly. Sorry OP, the people of the south west lost all my sympathy when they voted Brexit in their droves. It was a massive act of self harm, that and propping up 10 years of Tory government.

Cornwall relies heavily on grants from outside the county. I think many many people can argue that they have financially contributed to the area. Perhaps most distressingly for you, the biggest contributors are likely to be the very same higher tax payers who are snapping up all the Cornish property. That should be ok though because they and their forefathers have contributed though?

Well the belt tightening that the U.K. is about to go through might result in a slow down in the demand for Airbnbs and people reluctant to make long journeys - a reduction in demand might mean houses going back to long term lets or even being sold.
Also the cost of heating and keeping them above freezing when empty might also put people off second homes.

@Bumpitybumper stop posting utter rubbish you know nothing about. Cornwall benefited from the EU (why they voted leave is beyond me) but SW definitely does not benefit from higher levels of taxation elsewhere in the UK. You are just making stuff up.

I agree that the argument is not being made clear. The homes weren't necessarily sold by locals to become holiday homes. Many of these homes would have been rental, but rather than rent to locals they are now rented as holiday homes.

The reason they are now let as holiday homes rather than long-term lets is down to the tax system. A few years ago, to discourage the buy-to-let issue, the Government changed the system so BTL owners could no longer get relief for interest paid on their mortgages and over the years other issues have made BTL less profitable. Now every BTL landlord has switched to holiday home rental rather than long-term lets because it is more lucrative.

Other BTL landlords have sold up, purely because the long-term let business is no longer as profitable as it used to be. Those properties have been purchased by second-home or holiday let owners.

The knock on effect is that these places are now empty much of the time whereas previously they were lived in by people who couldn't afford to buy. They are ruining local communities as locals are unable to rent and tourists are only around for a few months of the year.

No, you are not an ethnic minority. You are a national minority - which ironically you were afforded under EU legislation. So I'm assuming as most of the south west voted for Brexit, you will now be giving up that 'protection'?! Or are you also a screaming hypocrite?

Your talk of 'birthright' smacks of conservatism and comes across as small minded and racist.

What in my post is 'total rubbish'?

The UK government is replacing half of the lost EU funding with money from the Shared Prosperity Fund. Cornwall has by far the biggest SPF allocation per capita. Where do you think the money for this fund comes from?

I'm a minority living in Cornwall and I definitely feel very much like the "other".

Right. Only those selling houses were mostly land barons, and this would be the equivalent of an Englishman getting stung by an English hotelier while in France. Cornish owned tourism companies are rare but tend to be more reasonable. Historical issues aside it's more useful to look at what can be done now, and why it's getting unsustainable now.

@Bumpitybumper so Cornwall gets it's funding slashed by 50% and they should be grateful?

During lockdown the vast majority of wealthy individuals "investing" in 2nd homes have been able to claim up to (and above in some cases) £18,000 per property from the local authority towards they contribute zilch.

Please, please find something better to do than trolling those of us who actually live in the SW.

I do feel for people in tourist and holiday home hot spots, such as Devon and Cornwall (and other areas of course).

Only now though are they beginning to get an inkling of what it has been like in London for the last 30 or 40 years!

@canyoutoleratethis I'm sorry that you are offended, I am not small minded, racist or uninterested in hearing others' perspectives on any issue. Although my opportunities to develop my critical thinking may have been impeded by many years of poverty, lack of access to resources and trauma, I believe that everybody has something to teach us.

Maybe I am a Conservative, as I want very much to conserve what makes Cornwall special. Already a smog hangs over the bay every night. Second home owners, caught in inheritance or other legal disputes, (or just carelessness, who knows!) leave main street properties to go to ruin, causing eyesores and health hazards such as rodent and pigeon infestation. They wholesale flytip at beauty spots to complete their renovations on the cheap. Northern councils send the infirm and drug addicted here by the thousands. Then comes the heroin and the crack. Then come the stabbings, gangs and pimps.

No I'm not OK with it, sorry. I'm not sure there's any solution beyond d the government deciding to tax fairly. As people are saying, it's because things were bad elsewhere before.

Now every BTL landlord has switched to holiday home rental rather than long-term lets because it is more lucrative.

It's lucrative as long as people holiday there. A house sitting empty needs low heating and council tax and insurance might not cover it when vacant.
Supply and demand.

I wonder how they would feel if affordable housing was made available in Cornwall to low paid workers but no preference was given to local applicants

@nosafeguardingadults, about 150 houses were built at the top of the hill near us as affordable housing, and Birmingham City Council bought about a third to accommodate (some of) their overspill, because they needed accommodation. No preference was given to locals because it was a private development company buying land, building houses, and selling them. A nakedly commercial transaction, but the developer hasn't helped ease our local housing crisis, and they have put nothing, zip, into the local infrastructure... not another consulting room at the local surgeries, no more school facilities. The roads are even busier and our sewage facility is so overloaded that we have huge bowsers back and forth several times daily.

I'm not trolling anybody. You said that I didn't know what I was talking about in terms of Cornwall recieving money from tax payers outside of the county . I just proved to you I was right. If people who have made a financial contribution towards Cornwall should be prioritised for housing as one poster suggested, then I think most UK taxpayers would have a claim and those who pay the most tax have the biggest claims.