‘It’s just a rich man’s playground now’: how St Ives became patient zero of British overtourism | Cornwall
‘It’s just a rich man’s playground now’: how St Ives became patient zero of British overtourism | Cornwall
The Cornish resort may be the picturebook seaside town but, through a desolate winter and a crowded summer, artists, fishers, visitors and locals reveal a community in danger of losing its soul
"overtourism" is such a good word. Summer in London is unbearable and the thousands of party lad homophobes coming down to Brighton every Saturday in the summer to culture clash with the natives don't help there either.
Prime example of why second homes need to be more heavily taxed, and loopholes like switches to "local businesses" closed
The thing that made me the saddest about this was when someone said that the second home owners don't donate to the food bank.
I'm sure they quoted one instance of a holiday home owner donating all surplus food at the end of their stay.
Even so, some visitors donate. Wallis says a Swiss couple give £500 each year. People ring and ask him to collect excess food from their holiday cottage when they leave.
As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives, Each wife had seven sacks, Each sack had seven cats, Each cat had seven kits: Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, How many were there going to St Ives?
Insufficient information!
My in-laws live in Cornwall. Off the tourist beat near Troon. I find the whole place terribly depressing given the enormous divides between the haves and have-nots. The tourist trap parts like St Ives and Padstow are like theme parks, the latter definitely being Rick Stein Land; then, the poorer parts remind me of rural Ayrshire where my Dad's family are from.
My wife has a lot of positive associations with the place with childhood memories of grandparents and other relatives. I've not managed to make any of my own despite visiting at least once a year.