Susanne Woodman

30 August 2002 16:14

Re the emmets

In response to your tirade against visitors to St Ives, may I point out that without them, many people there would be out of a job and forced to emigrate to foreign parts (i.e. beyond the Tamar). Residents may complain that housing is expensive, but unemployed persons would not be better off even if property were cheaper.

Also there are many sports, leisure, arts facilities that survive all year round on the money they get in the summer. Without that, they would not be in existence for the benefit of residents the rest of the time.

I have just been to the Lake District. I was surprised to discover how industrial it had been during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. When these industries died, the people were lucky that they had the scenery to create a tourist industry. Former mining towns in the NE are nowadays desperately hoping for tourists to visit their local mining experience. They'd be envious that Cornwall can offer much more and attract a steady flow of money.

Re the problem with health care: why can't they set up temporary health clinics, e.g. in schools during the school holidays, in order to prevent local GPs and hospitals being overwhelmed with minor problems? Why is the NHS so inflexible that it has to rely on volunteers (e.g. St Johns Ambulance) for special events and other temporary occasions? Is it the local council rather than the local Primary Care Trust that ends up paying for first aid on beaches?

Perhaps I should write to the local paper to make some constructive
suggestions!

Best wishes

Susanne

[Oh Lordy, it's sensible, reasoned argument, the last thing we expected on Spooky St. Ives! Better palm this one off on VJ.]

Vile Jelly

31 August 2002 19:29

Ah, thereby hangs a tale. Does the tourist industry make money for Cornwall or does it just allow the government to ignore the place? You correctly point out that, without tourism there would be massive unemployment in Cornwall, but is that worse than having lots of people earning the minimum wage and pretending that this 'full employment' means that everyone has got a paying job? The fact is (and these are reported facts, not me grinding an axe) that it is official that Cornwall is the poorest county in England and that the EU commission has designated it an area of significant social deprivation. Maybe if the facade of 'wealth brought in from tourism' was removed people would see just how crap the situation is for locals down here. Hell, we might even get food drops from the UN!

The whole point about the NHS story was to show people that the visitors don't just give, they take an awful lot. Which is something that, strangely enough, they don't seem very interested in doing anything about. One of the main thrusts of the story was that they are actually owed this money, it's not hypothetical. But no one is paying up.

Anyway, to finish off, here's a simple mathematical problem for you (or anyone else once this goes on the website) to solve:-

If a man in St. Ives earns £4.10 per hour, how many hours a week does he have to work to pay off a mortgage on an average value property in St. Ives costing £90,000?

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