My story is a case in point. Back in January 2020 I booked a pretty Cornish Airbnb for me and my partner, our whippet, my youngest son (we’re a blended, emptying-nest family with four boys) and his best mate for the first week in August. After a physically exhausting and emotionally draining 2019 my thinking had been, perspicaciously, ‘let’s keep things quiet and local-ish this year’. Quite how on-the-money this decision turned out to be was clear by the time we arrived post-lockdown, with foreign travel largely off the menu and the Chancellor’s ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ initiative in full swing. Indeed, apparently everybody in Britain had had the same idea: the county was heaving.
By the end of a lovely week – typical four seasons-in-one-day weather notwithstanding – not only was my 14-year-old son a committed ‘surf dude’ but after an evening on Rightmove (and a fleeting visit on the way home), I spontaneously put down a deposit on property near Newquay using the last of the cash from my late father’s estate; he’d died in 2019 and, as an Aussie born in Sydney, I knew he’d have approved of Fistral Beach’s closest-thing-to-Bondi-in-Britain vibe.
My little two bed, one bath, two-balcony, end of terrace, bricks and mortar ‘mid-century’ styled holiday chalet with owner’s access to two pools, tennis courts and a gym for 52 weeks of the year cost £47k – yes, that’s a two-digit figure – for a 900+ year lease, plus annual service charge. And as the terms of the holiday park’s lease don’t allow for ordinary residential letting or stays beyond 28 days at a time, it was clearly the ethical choice, too; I’m not depriving anyone of an affordable home in a county that is clearly crying out for them, while also supporting the booming local tourism industry. I refurbed the entire property mostly via Whatsapp, using fantastic local contractors during last year’s Lockdown 2.0, and rented out the property solidly from May to October via Airbnb (I’m currently a ‘superhost’), squeezing in our own family break during the Boardmasters Festival.
