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.

Holiday makers don’t want Redruth. It’s the coastal villages where property prices are high.

I think I’m right in saying Cornwall has 500,000 residents. It’s hardly a population free zone.

I think the need to stay there is strong for some because of the lifestyle. They like the beaches and local life. That’s what others want to buy into. I live in a small village. All the bigger houses are now owned by ex Londoners. It’s part of the exodus to the country.

By the way, QCs did work in the pandemic. The courts did remote working on a zoom type system. Otherwise the backlog for justice would be even greater and people in that system have their worries too.

*No it’s not lazy and you cannot absolve them of responsibility to their own community, the absolutely and only way people can buy a second home in Cornwall is if a local person or their family sold it to them. There is no way round this. It is not the fault of the purchasers. It is solely one hundred percent the responsibility of the locals and their families to decide who they sell to.

and your argument is highly Illogical and contradictory. One side you argue they need to maximise returns so sell to outsiders on the other you want some form of legislation to prevent them doing this, thus limiting their returns. You excuse them for doing it, whilst demanding a policy that prevents the locals acting this way.

you cannot have it both ways.*

It’s not the ‘fault’ of vendors or purchasers. It’s a systemic problem, can you not see this? That’s what I mean about taking a nuanced view.

Of course there’s a way around this. The planning system, occupancy restrictions, tax on non primary residences, etc. are instruments that could be used to restore balance to communities affected by a massive influx of people renting out local housing on Airbnb. Authorities could grant planning permission for proper, 40+ weeks let bona fide holiday homes but could control how many are granted permission.

This wouldn’t place a cap on how much vendors can sell for or restrict who they sell to. It might mean that buyers who are looking to buy a holiday let or second home would be put off buying in Cornwall. But someone looking for a primary residence or a proper buy to let investment (on an AST, not Airbnb) would still buy. This would free up more properties for Cornish vendors to buy as their next home and maybe dampen prices a little. So it would all balance out in the interests of the majority.

The only losers would be property investors looking to make a killing on Airbnb.

Oh and the mortgage companies!

How can you not see this argument is illogical and flawed? The argument is second home owners are driving pricing up so locals can’t buy and then decimating communities

if you legislate to put people off and limit it then by default you cap how much a property sells for,

@Kingharoldshairstyle if you legislate to put people off and limit it then by default you cap how much a property sells for,

You get there in the end don't you?

Why is it entitled @pixie5121 I would say it’s quite a basic need for families to reside near each other.

As a society we don’t support families with genuinely affordable childcare or elder care. So to make things work many need to live near family. I moved away from the South West to go to university, but I returned when my parents became elderly and needed support. I knew that housing was expensive in my home area so I got on the housing ladder where I was working and saved to ensure I could afford to come back. I also developed a career where I could work remotely for most of the time. But I appreciate the privilege in being able to do this and if I had to make that same decision to move back to my home town today, I would not find a house to buy or rent, such is the lack of supply and high prices in my home town.

And with the climate emergency we shouldn’t be promoting policies that encourage families to live miles apart if they want to see one another regularly!

The problem is jobs. That is all.

There are no jobs here. In London you have Canary Wharf, The City, huge corporations dotted all over the place paying huge salaries. The is nothing like that in Cornwall so there are no jobs that provide the big salaries.

Why don't KPMG have their head office in Liskeard? Why doesn't say, Whitbread? Why is the head office of Santander in Milton Keynes not Looe?

Why do people want second homes here? Because they want to escape the stupid rat race that as a society we have chosen to create.

In my village, a honeypot Cornish fishing village, the local accent is Birmingham. There are SO many people who have moved in, they live and work here they aren't doing anything wrong. They prefer Cornwall to Birmingham I guess.

Why did I move here? My life was fucked, my partner and I needed a new start and we wanted to find a house with land to make an income from. We converted part of the house into a holiday cottage and part of the garden into a glamping site so we could build our lives up. There are not many places in the UK where this would be possible for the price we paid for the house ( before the silly prices of now.)

I couldn't do my old job here, I'd have to commute to London or Birmingham or Edinburgh or basically anywhere but Cornwall. I worked as a coach in the corporate world. There is no corporate world in Cornwall which brings us back to jobs.

@TizerorFizz

"Holiday makers contribute 35% of the Cornish economy. "

++++

Tourism contributes 12% of the Cornish GDP on a par with 12% from agriculture and food. By comparison tourism contributes 9% of the UK GDP.

The point is that the Cornish economy is not overly dependent on tourism which also creates significant externality costs such as seasonal incomes, congestion and high house prices.

Families living close to each other is definitely a 'want' and not a 'need'. Lots of people for lots of reasons don't live near their wider families and still have happy, fulfilling, successful lives.

I am sure there are plenty of families that could sell the property currently owned by the older generation in Cornwall for a premium and use this money to move wholesale as a wider family to a more affordable area of the UK with better economic and housing prospects for the younger generations. Not many people are willing to do this though so it obviously isn't that much of a priority for them.

As I stated upthread, they want to stay in a beautiful area, live near their families and be housed cheaply. This is a dream shared by a large percentage of the population but very few people are able to achieve it and most have to make a sacrifice somewhere. Some from the SW simply don't appreciate this and genuinely believe that they have a greater entitlement to these things than everybody else.

I think a point that many English posters fail to understand when posting about Cornwall is that Cornish people have a strong affinity to Cornwall as a recognised national minority (in the same way as Scottish or the Welsh).

There is a cultural ignorance in assuming that moving from say Surrey to Cornwall is not different than say moving from Surrey to Berkshire.

As someone once said "comparison is the thief of happiness " so you have the added problem of strong wealth from English second home owners in the pretty coastal villages such as Padstow, St Ives, Fowey etc in close proximity to very poor areas such as Bodmin, Redruth and the clay district. This then creates local resentment especially when combined with a haughty condescending & superior attitude of English second home owners towards Cornish people ( or in the case of Gordon Ramsey Scottish second home owners).

There are obvious structural reasons why somewhere like Milton Keynes would attract more industry and have more job opportunities than Cornwall. Conversely, there are structural reasons why not many people choose to holiday in Milton Keynes and there is less desire for second homes etc.

As a country we can expend a lot of time, effort and money trying to stimulate industrial and economic growth in a county like Cornwall but I'm not sure this is sensible, efficient or desirable, especially if it potentially ruins some of the natural advantages of the area. We can prop the local population of the county up by offering grants to the area but inevitably this money has to come from somewhere and like it or not, the majority will come from the big bad wealthy higher tax payers that predominantly live in London. The very people that locals want to restrict their ability to buy housing. So the locals are basically happy to and very much demand that they are economically subsidised by the rich but absolutely don't want them having the same rights as them to buy into the area. How is this fair or right? We are all citizens of the UK and expected to subsidise areas that need help because we are one country but this ethos changes completely when someone from outside the local area dares to buy a house there.

Yes, it is offensive, wrong and bordering very closely on racist. I showed this thread to my husband, who's from Wales, and he said, "oh god it's just like the Welsh nationalists. The horrible insularity, the resentment of everyone else, the sense of superiority because your parents/grandparents/whatever happened to be born there."

It's a convenient coincidence that everyone living in Cornwall 500 years ago was White and Christian, so if those people are the only ones with a real 'right' or 'entitlement' to be there, it's going to continue to be a pretty much unilaterally mono-racial and mono-cultural place.

(And regardless of anecdotes, which are not data, the hard data which are available from the ONS show very clearly that the overwhelming majority of people living in Cornwall - ninety-eight per cent - are White. The only area of England and Wales that is 'whiter' than the South West is the North East of England - and the data for the South West will be skewed by including areas outside Cornwall, which have marginally higher levels of non-white residents.)

Well in the case of the OP who was unable to take up her potential place at a grammar school because of a few hundred quid per year, I would as a well informed person know that there are many educational charities which give grants for exactly this type of thing and I would go to my local reference library (as this would have been pre-internet) and look them up and write to every one. Plus until recently most councils ran school uniform grant schemes (some still do). And many still subsidise travel costs for students whose families are experiencing financial hardship. I bet you anything I would have turned someone up who was prepared to give a bright girl a grant to improve her life chances.

@pixie5121 ultimately, why should some people get to live in the most beautiful part of the country and expect others not to? Cornwall and Devon belong to everyone, not just the people who happened to be born there. Someone from London or Hull is every bit as entitled to live there if they want to.

No one has a problem people living here. It's people buying property and not living in it that is the issue.

We aren’t talking about stopping anyone from living where they want as @Daftasabroom says. It is the second home owners and Airbnb landlords who don’t live there that are preventing other people from living there. That’s the point.

Sorry, that was my point- its never going to have a better infrastructure.

That's not true though - several posters have written things such as:

Yes, I do think living in a beautiful place is my and my kids birthright, as long as we work hard and uphold our responsability to that place. Our birth certificates say Truro on them, but more importantly we are Cornish of generations past. We are an ethnic minority and we are being displaced by people who don't have the best interests of our homeland at heart, wether that be corporate/ private, old money, new money, Cornish land barons, overseas oligarchs or northern aristocracy.

That's not about 'second homes' or 'Airbnb'. That's someone who says outright that she believes she has a 'birthright' to live there because she is 'Cornish of generations past'. No mention of second homes.

@pixie5121 I am a stereotypical-looking Jew (long curly dark hair, olive skin, big nose etc.) often mistaken for Turkish/Greek/Spanish/etc. and I have had a lot of comments/questions/stares in places like this. And I'm (arguably) white. I agree completely with you, when people start to list the four non-white people they know it just makes it painfully obvious how mono-ethnic it actually is.

Except it isn't just about empty second homes. Some posters here genuinely think they have more of a right to live there because their family has been there for generations

Funnily enough, i agree with you, i don't think anyone has the "right" to live in the area they were bought up in at all.
However, the people who move in, price them out, don't pay decent wages, charge very high rents, go for AirBnB instead of long term rental & a Govt that wont assist in keeping people more local, should not then complain that there are no carers, no one to work in hospitality, no staff to work in schools, nursery's councils, health centres, etc etc etc....

@pixie5121 As an immigrant myself there is definitely something lost when a place is completely taken over by people with no appreciation of its history.
Its not a question of race alone. But culture, open mindedness and attitudes.

Rich Second home etc owners don’t care about Cornish culture, or the dialect. And if everyone local is forced out the heritage would soon disappear. Just like how the London Cockneys are ‘extinct’ today. Also there’s something about your home, and the surroundings that make it hard to leave.

Btw by saying that locals dont have the right to live where they were born you’re implying that beautiful places should only be for the wealthy. Millionaire’(or whatever) playgrounds in essence…

@AProperStinging @pixie5121 @Alexandra2001 You are taking one or two outlying opinions and applying that to everyone in the region. Have any of you ever actually lived in the SW?