Housing crisis in Cornwall spirals out of control - signs of opposition

Housing for locals crisis continues to grow but what is being done to protect a protected National Minority - the Cornish?

Since our last circular, our in box and social media has been full of messages from people from right across Cornwall who are simply being priced right out of their homeland. Some have had their homes sold by their land lords and been thrown out to allow for marketing of the houses for holiday makers.

One particular communication has again emerged and we place the message below anonymised because, as has so often been said, many Cornish residents are afraid of repercussions. The young couple are from Looe:

Here we go:

"Our tale of home ownership, although successful in the end I think personifies how awful the situation is in our coastal communities. 

Me and my partner are Cornish 25 years olds and have just managed to beat the odds and get our first albeit tiny house in Looe in April.

My family has lived in Looe for over 600 years according to our church records and my partner has made the huge move (haha) from St Stephens and is also Cornish as far as records go back. After successfully beating the odds to both be the first in our families to achieve degrees and masters degrees - and then both working several seasonal jobs and starting and running our own successful businesses all simultaneously we still struggled immensely to get a mortgage despite living at home with parents and significant savings as banks look down upon the self-employed and people with multiple jobs (which of course characterises most young people who've chosen to remain in Cornwall). 

Both wanting to remain with our families and amongst the community amidst which we are a part (unlike westminster feels - we're not just items which can be moved around and move to the north of england for cheaper rents without family and friends, the life we derive value from and the people we love -  whilst we conveniently move out of the way of english people buying our communities).  

In the end pre-covid I received an inheritance which was added to by my entire families effort and kindness to help me stay here and dwarfed the mortgage i was asking for so their was no risk to the bank whatsoever. So by kindness and calculation the mortgage algorhythms hatred of multiple jobs/seasonal incomes and self-employment. 

Then as the covid boom hit the housing market i watched as i tried to place offers houses rise in value faster than all my earnings - jumping £5000 a month on a 2 bedroom house to cash buyers. 

Luckily again a tiny holiday home came up that was near derelict but structurally sound (which is not what remote speculators target in cornwall so remained "affordable" at £240,000 for what amounted to 3 small rooms stacked on top of eachother with no parking, no garden, no working electrics).

We were over the moon - we could make do and actually maybe live somewhere! oh well if it was extension leads and needed some planks put down it was somewhere we could stay in Cornwall. 

We put our offer in and were told it would be only a few weeks! 

However we only managed to keep it despite a litany of challenges and thanks to the kindness of cornish & welsh strangers:

- Our solictor priortised higher value houses sold as second homes as they were above the voided stamp tax threshold

- this delayed the approval from the bank, which turned out wanted a third flood survey despite being told repeatedly they better do one

-  5 months of professionals failing to do their jobs meant the house went up to £260,000 - a £20k rise we couldnt hope to earn let alone save in that time. 

- After explaining to the welsh mortgage broker who understood after being driven out of her own community in the same way spent several days and nights fighting to get the survey done in time to complete before the sellers (who kindly waited 4 extra months, lowered the price as we planned to live there not rent it out for holidays and refused gazumping offers from cash buyers).

In the end we know live here - but little did we realise how difficult it is to buy a house hear without literally paying in cash as banks and socities hate lending to young people who work as the cornish economy dictates. Its not a matter of not working hard, or even not having the money/savings, its a systemic bias against those who earn money in the cornish economy - preventing people buying the homes of their ancestors. 

Now we live in the town of Looe - at huge expense and by the kindness of our family and Cornish strangers - yet we are the only people living on our entire street. The rest are rental holiday homes. And now we know why we're alone. 

All the best,

A angry local of Looe who shouts at people knocking on my door asking to rent the cottage for a week."

Protests begin

Seen at Fowey, an 'amended' notice and then near Helston but large amounts of these stickers are now to be seen all over......

As we have steadfastly maintained, people will not be putting up with this for much longer and we are aware that open protests are being planned and will spill on to the streets later this year.

Many are now openly stating that one of the many reasons for the lack of affordable homes for locals apart from the greed of developers and a broken planning system which has very little if any democratic accountability with any decisions made in Cornwall over ruled by a Planning Inspectorate in far away Bristol is the over marketing of Cornwall as a tourist destination. This serves to draw increasing numbers here and one does not have to look too far to see complaints about overcrowded towns and clogged roads. A leading Cornish academic, Doctor Bernard Deacon prolifically Tweets about this and the messages on  the Cornish Economic and Social Research Group (CoSERG) are spreading. Please do read them here on the CoSERG website: https://coserginfo.wordpress.com , here on the CoSERG Twitter account: https://twitter.com/co_serg and  follow Dr Deacon on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/bernarddeacon

Recently, a hard hitting home made video appeared on Facebook which touched upon the resultant problem of traffic and pollution and was circulated by 'Made in Padstow'. You can see it here on the 'Made in Padstow' Facebook site if you scroll down but you'll have to excuse the language! - https://www.facebook.com/lifeonthereservation . Similarly, the long suffering people of Porthcurno have taken to Twitter with a series of revealing photographs about the utter chaos in and around their community and you can see this here: https://twitter.com/porthcurnotoday

Meantime, the petitions organised by different individuals remain and grow in numbers of signatories:

https://www.change.org/p/cornwall-is-facing-a-homelessness-crisis-help-us-to-put-pressure-on-linda-taylor-and-the-new-cornwall-council-to-cap-local-rents-raise-tax-on-second-homes-save-cornwall-s-precious-coastal-communities?utm_content=cl_sharecopy_29169936_en-GB%3A8&recruiter=745950880&recruited_by_id=e80c0e10-66d9-11e7-8c98-1fe77b47864b&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=6b380b3810ff4d56b1a1d4fd64a0fbe7&fbclid=IwAR1vvm1OUVFLPjKjjngeMIH0ZxVfKiPai5DHyEiaIMbx-0H8G7vhwSsc46I

AND

https://www.change.org/p/cornwall-council-council-s-planning-officers-have-failed-cornwall-and-must-fight-to-better-protect-cornwall-or-resign/u/29314635

Kemereugh wyth!