The pretty UK seaside town that turns into ghost town at same time every year
The town is reportedly home to some of the best ice cream in the UK - but a dysfunctional housing market is leaving it abandoned.
A beautiful Cornish town that still has a working fishing port becomes a ghost town every winter as “cancerous” second homes and holiday lets take over.
Every 1 in 3 houses on the harbour front of the town of Newlyn does not belong to a permanent resident, Express.co.uk can reveal.
The picturesque town lies in fear of falling to the same fate as nearby Mousehole, where an estimated 80 percent of homes belong to people who mostly live elsewhere.
The historic harbour dates back to 1435, when it was first recorded as an industrial port, proving a great draw for tourists - not to mention Jelbert’s ice cream, which was recently labelled by the Guardian as the second best of its kind in the country.
Stephen Reynolds, Mayor of Newlyn’s civil parish Penzance, told Express.co.uk the issue was eroding the local culture.
He added: “There's a certain amount of vibrancy with tourist money coming in.
“But it's much healthier if it comes from people who are coming here as permanent residents.
“You have local young people who can't afford to live in the town they grew up in which is tragic, and we've had cases of people having to live in caravans having to news 12, 15, 20 miles away.”
A 2022 council report on the state of non-permanent residents in the Penzance area found that there were 400 full properties listed on Airbnb for rent - and just four available on the property market.
Janet Pearson, who lives on a road popular with the holiday market, told the Independent: “It’s cancerous in the way it’s spreading.
“When I first moved here 10 years ago, every house on my road was lived in, with several families and quite a few children. During lockdown, two houses became holiday lets, then more.
“It’s sad in the winter. When I pull my curtains at night and look out, the houses opposite are just dead. There’s no light in them at all. It makes me feel very isolated.”
An owner of a local pub, who asked to remain anonymous, told Express.co.uk she had noticed the town becoming much quieter over winter, but added: “at least it’s not quite as bad as Mousehole.”
“We’ll always have locals around working but it is just people get greedy,” she added.
“They put the house pricing up when they want to sell and then people around here can’t have the money to but it.”
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She said: “Newlyn’s not quite so bad, but it’s getting there. I’d like to think it won’t go quite as bad.”
Mr Reynolds explained that while the issue of second homes is quite an emotive issue for residents, statistically the use of Airbnbs has become the most prominent issue.
He said that normally, Cornwall Council would consider the number of homes owned by non-permanent residents to be an issue when it reached 12 percent of the total housing.
The Airbnbs lining Newlyn are not just traditional Airbnbs where owners let out a single room, but where “you have properties that are bought by outside investors are renovated with a view to renting them out on Airbnb, and that's happening a lot.
“And those of course, are properties which drop out of the private rental market.”
The issue lies with a combination of low average wages, and a stretch property market.
The council is attempting to address the former issue by investing in the prominent fishing industry - but the housing crisis is a thornier issue where their limited power as a local council hinders their efforts.
Part of their plan, then, is to support the designation of Cornwall as one of the areas selected for the “devolution revolution” under the Levelling Up White Paper, and ensuring that policy areas such as housing fall under their own remit.
Mr Reynolds said: “As a local council alone, we have very limited powers and very limited resources. Even though we know what the problems are, we don't have much in our toolbox to fix it.”