Had a great break at Wainsford Fishery during the half-term week. Terrific self-catering cottages with 2 miles of The Fowey , a beautiful little spate river. Had one grilse of 6lbs on the worm ( the heavy rain coloured up the river for much of the week ). It was great to watch pods of sea trout ascend the weir on The Warleggan ( a tributary ) , some really good fish amongst them. The owner Paul Elliot is doing a great job with his hatchery there and deserves plaudits. Unfortunately he has been quite ill recently and was in hospital while we were there.
Also visited The Eden Centre ( amazing ) and Padstow. Padstow was overflowing with tourists , the Chelsea tractors very evident. Was last there 12 years ago and the Rick Stein effect has brought in the designer shops and restaurants with the braying hordes , shame.

you may not like braying hordes but if I was a Padstow local and I had the choice of "braying hordes and more local jobs" and "no braying hordes and no extra jobs" I know which one I would choose.....

is there a link, for the wainsford fishery???????
len.....

JCT,
Take your point and did in fact speak to a couple of locals in the car park who had mixed feelings about the Rick Stein effect.The increased traffic and very high property prices were highlighted as problems for the locals. We ate in one of the cafes in town and most of the staff were Eastern European. Undoubtably much more money is flowing into the town but I wonder how much of it is going into the pockets of the locals.

Len,
See www.wainsford.com

thanks, carrowmore..........
len.........

I'm sure that local employers don't actively discriminate against locals, so I presume the locals have actively chosen not to take the new jobs on offer because they don't like the wages offered for those jobs. If that is the case then the fact that money that is flowing back to Poland rather than Padstow is an issue that is entirely within the powers of Padstow locals to control....

Additionally, there will be other impacts on the local economy. Visitors will spend money in a variety of places, whether local B+Bs/ hotels, newsagents, local attractions etc and I'm sure they all not staffed by East Europeans.

Surely the answer cannot be to prefer that entrepreneurs like Stein don't set up in your locale. The economic stagnation/ collapse that afflicts many rural and "out of the way" communities is infinitely more damaging than the "negative" aspects you mention. For these reasons I can't agree with you that this situation should be described as a "shame".

House prices in Cornwall are 15 times the local average wage. Padstow would be double that.Migrant workers will pile up 20 in a house or live in tents then ****** off.

They call it ''New Cornwall''

In my the fishing village a meal costs the same if not more than a meal in the yuppie wine bars of wandsworth common or battersea rise. The guy pulling your pint and serving your meal will be earning £5.00 per hour down here.

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It's not just cornwall that suffers from this, I'd say almost the entire South West, with some exceptions (Plymouth anyone?) is feeling the Stein, Hugh Fernley Eatitall effect. I know villages on the Isle of Purbeck where there isn't a single house owned by a local anymore, theyre all 2nd homes. Walk down the street on a weekday evening and there isn't a single light on. In west Dorset you are hard pressed to hear a Dorest accent these days and the Beaminster/Broadwindsor/Drimpton area has been a last bastion of Dorest-ness for years. There is actually a group of women in Beaminster who get together once a month (about 60 of them) to keep local ties alive, It's a sad state of afairs when they are the last remaining 'locals' in a 15 mile radius.

The Beaminster I grew up in had a market square that on a Saturday morning was full of Massey Fergussons, Land Rovers and beaten up old estate cars. Last week I was there and counted eight 06 plated cars, 2 porsche cayennes and more wealth mooching around the antique shops and deli's that my Dorset of 15 years ago could imagine. The houses are all being bought up by bloody Londoners tired of the city life, who end up being disgruntled by country life and complain at loud tractors and crowing cockerels. I've a mind to move to London and complain so much about the train track or tube line that they'll be issued with abatement notices and limited to running after 8am and before 10pm... Hmm can't see it happening in the city but any idiot can move to the country and decide that it's their right to peace and quiet.

The South West has some of the highest unemployment rates in the UK, has the highest House Price to Income ratio in the UK and any number of other problems. Yet it will always be my home, even if I've moved as far east as I can stomach (Salisbury) for work.

The Polish or Australian or whatever workers are just there making the most of what are mainly teporary seasonal jobs. It is hard for a local to survive on seasonal work, what sort of long term job security does that give to buy a house or raise a family? You take a job for the summer season, if it's a **** season weather wise then you are liklely to be 'let go'. It's not always a case of people not being willing to do the work, it's simply that you cannot give yourself a secure future working on 6 month contracts, 1 weeks notice and £5 per hour...

-- If it wasn't for the dodgy political leanings and my belief that they miss the point too often I think my dream job would be working for the CPRE -- (the countryside, in my opinion, is a working, ever changing, developing network - not a museum. I think that the CPRE and many other agencies often confuse Conservation and Preservation, to the extent that the place might look pretty but is a pain in the ass to live in )

Ohh I've ranted enough. I'll shut up now

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I think your aim is off the mark in targeting people like Stein and Fearnly-Whittingstall for trends that have nothing to do with them. I agree that rural house prices are beyond the means of many local people, but then so are urban ones. The rise of house prices across the UK is a national trend, not just a rural or South-Western one, and one that is due to far bigger structural issues in the UK economy. Issues that those two would struggle to make any perceptible impact on, even if they were trying to.

And anyway, what is likely to enable a local to afford a currently-too-expensive house/flat? Answer - a better paid job. Where is that likely to come from? Answer - increased local economic activity. Where is economic activity going to come from? Answer - amongst others, entrepreneurs like Rick Stein.

And also don't forget that for every buyer there is a seller. Locals who have sat on housing rocketing in value are cashing in their asset and either spending it (probably locally) or helping their offspring to enter the housing market.

Blame "incomers" all you like - it won't do much to help the situation.