Hello Dear Reader,
I had the loveliest time with a dear friend today. We drove for about fifteen minutes from my home to Polperro.
It's an ancient fishing village, the streets were designed for ponies with baskets of fish on their backs.
In the 1700s and 1800s, smuggling was rife and the history was shall we say colourful.
Once, the entire economy of the village depended on fishing. Now, the village makes it's living from tourism. It's a sad day if all if Cornwall ends up like this, a pastiche of times gone by which just exists for people to gawp at. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather there was tourism than no economy at all but this place just saddened me.
So many empty properties. When I got home, I investigated how much the rentals were. On average they were over £800 a week even now when the season is all but over. A lot were well over £1500 for a week. Oh dear, greed gone mad! I then, through further investigation found many of those rental properties for sale. Considering that most of Polperro was built before cars and that most properties have no vehicular access they still were massively expensive. The result of greed gone mad? Empty homes. It was a shame to see.
It's sad enough that Cornish people can no longer afford to live in coastal communities, at least remember that your only income is from tourism. So Polperro, get real. Drop your prices, fill your holiday rentals.
Rant over!
Over to you Dear Reader, who would have taken a holiday in Cornwall or another tourist area if it were more reasonably priced?
Love Froogs xxxx