Name the three issues
Housing prices, connectivity and employment structures
Describe issues around employment structures
In 1997 79.5% of Cornwall’s employment was in the tertiary sector accounting for 30,000 jobs, but these are mainly part-time, seasonal, low-wage, and semi/unskilled work like cleaning - e.g. in Newquay employment is 11% January but 5% July
Cornwall has the lowest full-time wage in GB being £362.90 in 2002, 25% lower than the UK average
St Austell Moor high quality China clay reserves was bought by a French TNC which increased the use of technology in quarrying resulting to reductions in employment
Describe issues around housing
In 2021 December property prices in Cornwall increased by over 20%, majority being coastal properties, 71% of buyers of property in Cornwall were from outside of Cornwall with 38% being from London and 46% of buyers purchasing second homes
Second homes place significant pressure on house prices which forces local first time buyers out of the market to places more affordable which in turn leads to out-migration of the youngest members of the community enhancing the brain drain already brought about by poor employment and connectivity as well as create empty streets and communities as those who grew up there can no longer stay there
70% of homes in the locality of Rock are second homes
Poor supply of housing
Difference between second home and a holiday home
Holiday homes are lent out and therefore provide more value to their locations as more tourists enter and leave than a second home which is only occupied once a year in the majority of cases
Describe issues around connectivity
Train journeys from St Austell’s to London takes between 4-5 hours
M5 ends at Exeter
In Tregony a small town east of Truro the average car ownership is two per household due to the immobility
A rural post office is now more than 2km away from one in every 15 households
78% of rural settlements have not a general store
29% of all rural settlements have no bus service at all
How successful have attempts been to improve issues around housing
From 2025 April second home owners will be made to pay additional taxes
In St Goran’s Parish 33.8% of properties were second homes in 2023, which was 2.5 times higher than the two years previous
New houses being built but affordability is low e.g. 26% of new houses built between 2020-21 were affordable, lowest % since 2010 and many of which were then sold as second homes
Councils can raise the tax levied upon second homes to 300% - making a £1000 bill for a resident £4000 for a second home owner
‘Principle Residence’ condition in the sale of new-built properties was voted in by residents of St Ives in 2016 but this only applies to the small amount of new houses being built
Not very successful
How successful have attempts been to improve issues around connectivity
Access for Cornwall through Telecommunication to New Opportunities Worldwide (ACTNOW) launched in 2002 was a £12.5 million scheme backed by BT which allowed 5500 largely small businesses to benefit from high speed broadband connection with a take up rate 10% higher than the national average
Connexions allowed small scale businesses to trade nationally and internationally thus overcoming the barriers created by geological remoteness - the Chyreen Fruit Farm through the Connexions was able to sell fruits to the world on the web
How successful have attempts been to improve issues around connectivity
Cornwall awarded Objective One in the EU which provided £300 million in grants over six years to break the cycle of rural divergence; targeted at small businesses, tourism, agriculture, and solving long term unemployment - funding the Extreme Academy and Eden project
Eden Project: 750,000 visitors each year, all 4000 of its staff employed locally, mostly from St Austell’s, 75% were previously unemployed and 40% are above the age of 50, multiplier effect indirectly created around 1,700 jobs in the wider area, £1.1 billion for the local economy, enabled B&B’s to remain open throughout the duration of the year whereas they would usually have to close
Cornwall Film Studios, at St Agnes, has created 200 jobs and is a very good area for filming which has resulted in it being used for the 2002 Die Another Day bond film
