Moving to Cornwall

[tbong]

Hi everyone, we are looking to move to Cornwall in approx 18 months - 2 years. Our children will be 14 and 12 at that time... I am looking for any advice on areas to live in Cornwall... we need good transport links to the north of England and a good secondary school... other than that we're pretty flexible... obviously we love the seaside and surfing, body boarding and skate parks are part of the plan! And we're heavily advertising that to the kids to get them on board! ... any advice would be greatly appreciated.... thank you very much...

Cornwall is full.

Sadly so is north Lincolnshire..

Good transport links to the North of England? Do you know where Cornwall is? We barely have good transport links to Devon!

I'm on a work deadline today but will come back later with a more helpful response.

Friends with children who moved down after their parents retired moved to Falmouth. It’s a good size for jobs etc and the kids getting about themselves.

1. Secondary schools – most are fine, even the ones which are lower Ofsted rated are good enough, especially if the kids have a supportive family behind them. Truro has the only private schools unless you live in the SE of the county and can travel to Plymouth. Don't forget to factor in colleges - Truro, Penzance and Bodmin have the largest ones. Not every town has a 6th form.

2. Transport links – Newquay airport is the only way to get to the north of England without factoring in a day of travel. Flights can be disrupted in bad weather and there’s poor transport links to the airport itself. Trains aren’t great but they are promising to get better. Living near the main train line and/or within reach of the A30 helps enormously (except in summer when it’s a car park at certain times of the week).

3. Beaches / surfing / skating – anywhere near the sea is automatically more expensive, but it’s not easy for teens to get around by themselves so it can be worth it. As a rule the north coast has surf, the south coast is gentler. Mount Hawke is a great skate destination. They’re building a new skate park in Falmouth. Look up others here: www.skateparks.co.uk/cornwall/

4. Most people moving down find real Cornish rural living too much so prefer the towns. IMO Falmouth is the most cosmopolitan / diverse / lively (impact of the universities). Truro is the only city and is a nice place to live. Wadebridge is quite popular. Penzance is a mixture of great culture/arts and deep deprivation. Camborne and Pool are similarly deprived. Redruth is showing signs of improvement. Newquay, St. Ives and Perranporth are very affected by tourism (good and bad). Helston, St Austell, Liskeard, Lostwithiel and Bodmin are all a bit bland. Smaller places like Fowey, St Agnes, Flushing, St. Just might be worth considering if you don’t mind small communities. Padstow / Polzeath / Rock are well out of my price range! I don’t know Bude well, sorry.

5. Most people are shocked at travel times in and out of Cornwall when they first move down. Basically to get anywhere add half to one day onto your holiday travel. And the extra cost.

6. It’s very white. Very. Again, that takes some getting used to.

Wow thank you for taking the time to help with all this info! It's definitely where we want to be... we've been looking at st Austell/Truro areas... only need transport links in case of emergency with older family relatives... we realise the pace is that bit steadier down there and journeys seem to take twice as long, but that's part of the beauty of it too... we are currently in north lincs where everything seems to be moving at double quick time... worried for the future of the children here to be honest... I know every area has its problems but I just don't see anything here for them... we love the life we've seen down there... ready to embrace it xx

You're welcome. I hope you get a few more replies because others will have a different perspective to me.

Good luck with your move.

Public transport is crap.
Job prospects for your kids are poor if they stay in the county. Most teenagers leave as soon as they can (my experience).
The racism is astounding.
Cost of living is high.
The county shuts down in October until April.
The beaches are pretty, but living near them is expensive.

Cornwall on a holiday is nothing like living here.

I'd look for somewhere near north coast if surfing and bodyboarding is what you want.
Cheap - Camelford or Hayle or St Austell (go outskirts, not town).
Nice, yet reasonableish - Wadebridge
There are plenty of expensive villages.
Mainline train services getting better, except when dawlish washes away.
To be fair, after living here, why would you want to leave?! If there are emergencies then travel can be sorted.

Summer holidays can be a bit of a nightmare, but it's more than made up for in the spring and autumn and a good day in winter makes up for ten bad ones.
Your children might find it a bit oppressive unless you're near a town with decent facilities and connections. I'd look at Wadebridge, Falmouth, Truro.

Avoid Bodmin.

Basically, if you're keen to take advantage of the natural environment of Cornwall, and won't miss bright lights and bustling metropolitan lifestyle, you will love it.

Wow @TwattingDog that's not a Cornwall I recognise.

There's plenty going on in the winter. Lots of events and festivals:

Oyster festival
Beer festivals
City of Lights festival
Stuff at the Eden project
Mousehole lights

It's not the west end but it's not a cemetery either.

Everything else is equally applicable to any other rural area.

There have been other threads on this topic, and I know I'm not alone.

The festivals you've named come at a cost, and few would be suitable for teenagers.

People have an idyllic view of Cornwall based on a week long holiday in hot weather. Living here is not the same.

The racism - I can count on one hand how many times I have spoken to a person of colour living in Cornwall in the last five years, other than the gents in my local Indian takeaway or the lady who runs the Chinese restaurant. Attitudes collectively amongst local residents towards POC are unreal - language that fell out of use a decade or more ago in other parts of the country are the norm. I won't write the words here.

It is a very white county. Sod all diversity. Aging population.

Job prospects are poor. We're a big county, with rural populations, heavily focused on the service sector. The service sector is staffed by young people who are employed on part time seasonal basis only. Wages are poor in all sectors.

Housing prices are out of keeping with local incomes.

Brain drain from the County has been the norm for decades.

It's all fact I'm afraid.

I recognise most of what twatting has written, apart from 'the norm' of racist language.
But that might because I'm white and there really is an incredible lack of diversity down here - hard to be racist if there's no-one around to direct it at even though some people still manage it.
Cornwall definitely has its drawbacks, and living here won't be for everyone, but I love it and I'll never leave.
I will still be here when my children beat it upcountry, and hopefully still be here when they return again with their own children!

I grew up in Cornwall and left around 21. I also recognise a lot of what @TwattingDog said as well.

Good links to the north 😂

I don't recognise the racism, again I'm white and there wasn't a lot of diversity growing up but my biggest experience of racism towards people of colour has been whilst living in the midlands (where I live now).

I will move back down there one day. I miss it every single day (and my family who are there), I realistically can't afford the standard of living that I can hear in the midlands right now.

www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/eight-year-old-opens-up-3416277

Racism isn't confined to skin colour. I am Scottish but grew up in Cornwall from age 7. I was bullied for years because I'm not a local. I was never accepted, and nor were my family. I see it replicated every day, in snippets and throw away comments. But I've married a local, so I'm deep in the community of the county after 30yrs of it.

Thank you all for your very honest responses... I really appreciate it... lots of thinking to do. We live in a pretty rural area now... we like the quiet life. Shocked about the racism issue... live and let live I would say... however, each to their own... again thank you...

There is racism out of malice or prejudice which obviously happens everywhere but there is also ignorance which is not malicious but borne out of pure isolation in a backwater where everyone is not merely white but descended from 10 generations of Cornish farmers, miners and fishermen. Legendary story when DH told his granny about me and said I was foreign, she said "oh, is she black dear?" And DH's aunt hissed, very shocked "Mum you can't say black anymore, it's coloured!!" Granny then responded "I don't mind if she's black OR coloured!" This was in about 2005, it was like they had stepped out of a timewarp to the 1950s.

DH himself said that apart from on TV, he had never seen anyone who wasn't white until he was 8 and went on a school trip outside of Cornwall - and he is under 35. Things are definitely changing for the better down there on the diversity side though.

I grew up in Cornwall and didn’t encounter any racism (as pp above i’m white so all the privilege stuff applies, but never saw it directed at anyone else either including my BF in school who was not white). Moved to Hertfordshire recently and one of the first conversations i overhear in the high street is about how “you can’t trust them darkies”. My point is, racism is not a specifically Cornish problem. I was bullied for being ginger and “posh” (ie no cornish accent) as a child - anecdotally similar also happened to friends in Wales, London and Midlands. Small mindedness is not confined by geographical location.

Back to the questions you actually asked - the main trainline is Penzance to Paddington and you tube across London to go North. Be aware the poverty levels (and therefore social problems) are likely to rise again post brexit because most of the money in the county for the last twenty years has been special funding from Europe as a deprived area. The schools were all largely fine when i was there, and the sixth-form colleges were great fun. You do have to leave at 18 for uni or jobs, and most don’t go back again until retirement - the exceptions being those who work in hospitality, NHS, or are lucky to get a position with a transferable skill set (teacher, accountant etc). As PP have said, surfing is largely North coast and unless you’re looking for proper rural isolation, best to stick to the larger towns. Wadebridge, Truro, Falmouth are all at the naice end of the spectrum. Bodmin, Penzance and St Austell not so much. If you can go down out of season and spend a few weeks trying it out, it might be a good idea to get a feel for what it’s really like there before taking the plunge.

That's a good point @TwattingDog - outsiders will be outsiders for decades.

I'm 4th generation Cornish and love the people but also no accent so was posh. I was middle class and my family well known in the town as they employed a lot of people. I had a lot of privilege.

I get a similar response in Derbyshire. I'm posh. An outsider. It's more playful than suspicious though, I've not encountered much problems but then I'm generally caring for people so they have something to gain from being nice 😂

I'm an outsider, from the SE and have only been living here FT for seven years, but on and off for twenty.
I've never experienced any exclusion or bullying or even rudeness about not being Cornish.
I wouldn't let it worry you OP.