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.

my kids had over an hour each way just to get to school.

that was completely normal when i was a kid in London

Post what they are. HMOs, studios, 1 beds. Average 1 bed in cheapest bit of London is £900 pcm.

Most of London is £600/700/800 pcm just for room on slum HMO.

Bad for singles even in slum HMO and how do you think families can do that?

Also landlords on London don't let to minimum wage unless slum illegal places. They want 30 times rental income. They rent to rich people who move to London from Cornwall and Devon and Suffolk and Norfolk.

10 year housing wait for social in London so obvious big problem. Loads more not even allowed on list and just thrown out of London by councils who send 100s miles to homeless temp. Some councils sending as far as Bradford.

I never said she was wealthy. I was pointing out that the fact that she was born and raised in such a beautiful part of the world is a privilege in itself. Many people born in less beautiful areas expend a lot of time, money and effort to manoeuvre themselves into a position where they can live in such a place and raise their children there. If they want to live in such a place then they will have to leave their support network and friends to do so.

It is not a God given right to expect to be housed in a beautiful area even if it is where your family and support network is or you happen to have lived there all your life. Protecting local people's right to housing directly impacts the ability of outsiders from less beautiful areas being able to live there.

Lots of posters banging on about low paid workers being priced out of the market. 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. Someone from Luton or Barnsley had the same right to the housing as someone born and bred in Cornwall. Surely this would be fair and solve the perceived issue of filling low paid jobs? I have a feeling for many this would be insufficient because it would adversely impact the 'community'' i.e. themselves, their friends and people like them.

the poor in places like london and some of the north are generally better placed to better themselves

The SW is not unique though. Norfolk, Gloucestershire, Lake District, the Highlands and Islands, are all in a similar situation.

I think the lack of Uni is far less an issue than it used to be with things like the OU and apprenticeships. From what I’ve seen, the lack of aspiration is a family thing, not a location thing.

suggest you re-read the OP. The OP refers to access to Universities, my kids had over an hour each way just to get to school.

My brother had 1 hour each way to school on London. I had 45 minute each way.

What about universities. I said last night doesn't help the 80,000 London children on temp homeless. Try studying in homeless temp often one room shared with parents and siblings.

How does the universities help Londoners forced out, sent by councils 100s miles away.

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.

🤷‍♀️

Inner city poverty is a really tough nut to crack because it's endemic and chronic, but the rural housing crisis isn't, it's homemade and the solutions are simple and achievable (and also applicable to some extent in cities).

What is difference? What do you mean homegrown? How is it different to London? Are you being racist cos London more diverse?

Same simple solution obvious is affordable housing and employment opportunities.

London has highest young people unemployment on UK.

No difference for wherever place is. London or Cornwall. Same solutions needed. Housing affordable and employment opportunities.

OK I'm just gonna ignore the weird Cockney troll. I'm gonna assume you're a troll until you learn to read before you post, and stop dominating the conversation, @nosafeguardingadults

Thank you to @pucelleauxblanchesmains and others who said that we should be able to at least attempt to preserve our home and community, I would think being a decendant of displaced persons would help understand that it's our right to try and protect what's so special about our home, our access to it, influence on its future, quality of life there and our culture.

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.

I also don't expect that I should be able to rock up in London or any other place just because, what, I have a job lined up there?

• and expect to get social housing, denying a local family? That's madness. Londoners should take priority there. That's for another thread though perhaps?

the poor in places like london and some of the north are generally better placed to better themselves

How? I'm from London and was in refuge in what is called in media deprived northern town. No better opportunities than Cornwall and other rural places. Unless you mean opportunities for young people to get pressured into joining gangs and stabbed or prison.

Thank you to @pucelleauxblanchesmains and others who said that we should be able to at least attempt to preserve our home and community,

but you’re asking the outsiders not to buy in Cornwall. Why are you not asking the locals not to sell to them? Why is it outsiders job to protect your community and not the locals?

the fact remains the only reason people have holiday homes there is becayse a local sold them it. It’s not outsiders jobs to protect your community if the local people refuse to do it.

You see this is exactly the sort of arrogant attitude which makes me take my money and spend it on a holiday elsewhere

We're ok to venture over your borders to spend our money when you want it, but unwelcome to do anymore, and god forbid we actually want to live there.

What would you actually do without visitors?

(No I don't have a second home in the south, and I wouldn't ever want one)

@Kingharoldshairstyle don't be silly. If my parents died tomorrow I'd inherit a house worth £600k+ I'd be daft not to sell it to the highest bidder, absolutely gutted mind.

The whataboutism and victim blaming on this thread by people who in all likelihood never spent more than a few weeks in the SW is phenomenal.

@Kingharoldshairstyle don't be silly. If my parents died tomorrow I'd inherit a house worth £600k+ I'd be daft not to sell it to the highest bidder, absolutely gutted mind.

but that perpetuates the problem

Wish I was a troll. Am suffering personally cos of what's been done to London and suffered years cos of it. Didn't mean to take over thread but very very ignorant and offensive what I read.

OP could've written about problems happening on Cornwall without pretending it's better in London when is worse. She brought London into it and on very ignorant way.

It's very upsetting and offensive. I understand problems in other places but very offensive what OP said. London very very bad situation and been happening long time before started in Cornwall.

Personally suffered cos of it so not troll. Just offensive cos people like OP ignorant and no clue.

Londoners get huge blame for moving out & buying up second homes by the sea. However anyone I know who has done this isn't a born & bred Londoner, they just moved there for a few years. They tend to come from the home counties if anything! 😆

All, I think there are several aspects to the intent of the OP.

1. The SW and similar rural and coastal communities suffer from a high level of inequality between the majority and the very wealthy.

1. This is totally avoidable and is being made rapidly worse by the huge increase in 2nd homes and holiday let's.

1. There is a severe rose tinted, myopic, overly romantic view that the SW is some kind of idle where life is simple, stress free and we can all live happily ever after. It isn't.

In regards to affordable housing I think people already in the area who need it and have contributed financially or their forefathers have should be prioritised over people not connected with the area in the first place

You right what you've said, Daftasabroom, and not ok and big problem, and exactly same problems, all three you listed, are problems for London and other urban places.

Read on mumsnet someone said about Grenfell. Extreme inequality of wealth in London too.

Second homes & holiday lets big massive problem for London renters too

What other person here said true about London. Rose tinted view streets paved with gold.

Big problems everywhere maybe but please don't say better in London cos housing crisis one of worst in world in London.

Sorry so upset so many posts. Personally suffered cos of it. Don't wish it on other places.

Think need same solution everywhere housing and employment opportunities.

@ProfessorSillyStuff

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.

And there it is.

You never have to scratch the surface much before you get to the reality. Which is nothing to do with 'support networks' or questionable stories about not being able to afford tuition for grammar schools, and everything to do with preserving a mono-ethnic, white, insular, community where all 'outsiders' are seen as inferior and ethnically 'other'.

No matter how tough life can be in London (and other big cities), at least we welcome people from all over the world and see the value and pleasure in meeting those from other cultures and backgrounds, rather than claiming that we have a 'birthright' to that particular patch of earth because our families have never, ever gone anywhere.

I appreciate that the SW has problems with housing and in addition with isolation/transport/rural living and they are obviously real problems and I do absolutely believe that owning a second home anywhere should be made much more difficult. But it is also true that there are absolutely loads of Londoners working minimum wage zero hours contracts who are spending an even greater proportion of their income on rent.

'Incomers' have been pushing up London property prices for decades because for a long time it was where you needed to be in order to do some jobs at the highest level (or sometimes at all). It is now happening elsewhere in the country because living location is now becoming uncoupled from working location, but that does not mean that Londoners haven't been experiencing exactly the same thing for at least the last forty years.

Good transport isn't much help if you can't afford to go anywhere. Good schools are nice to have but the catchments for many are so small that they are not an option for any but the better off (and there are plenty of poor schools although not as many as there used to be which is exactly why the plan for London involving greater funding was instituted). Access to universities is great but the numbers of families on a low wage who can afford to have a non-contributing member of the family are no better than in the SW. And beaches and beautiful scenery are great but again not much good to anyone if you can't afford to access them or find a reasonably priced place to live. It is normal to want to stay where you come from and to be close to your family. It's also normal that sometimes you make a choice between doing that and having a better quality of life. A lot of my contemporaries from school (in London) had to leave in order to find somewhere to live and raise families. It's not their fault. In fact, the rising prices in these places are spillover from the pre-existing London problem.

Given that these problems are starting to affect loads of places, maybe we should try not to make it a competition about who has it worst. Maybe we should be thinking of solutions.

This is interesting on rent as a proportion of income: www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46072509

Which is nothing to do with 'support networks' or questionable stories about not being able to afford tuition for grammar schools, and everything to do with preserving a mono-ethnic, white, insular, community where all 'outsiders' are seen as inferior and ethnically 'other'

100% this.

In regards to affordable housing I think people already in the area who need it and have contributed financially or their forefathers have should be prioritised over people not connected with the area in the first place

Why? Why shouldn't it be done on need exactly as it is everywhere else in the country?

Yep!

Exactly - that's by car. The kids who commute from Sennen to Truro by bus for college would be looking at a bus of around 25 mins followed by another of around 50-60 mins.

I think in most places tbh with a % for refugees

That's why it has become so unfair in the UK