Might Dumfries and Galloway be the 'new' Cornwall? If true, this is terrifying
Recently the Daily Record put out a story that Galloway is the 'new' Cornwall.
This is unhelpful and if true should send shivers down the spines of local people.
Cornwall is not a healthy community anymore.
Cornwall is afflicted with the following problems:
- Unaffordable housing. Housing is being bought up by second homeowners and retirees forcing working locals away.
- Incomers blocking progress and development by using their shaped elbows and available free time.
- Young people have to leave due to a tourism-focused economy that only works half the year.
- Local businesses finding it hard to find staff, end up closing or moving out of the area.
- Towns and villages out-of-season become half or completely empty.
- Farmers struggle to find staff and have to change their business or move to part-time farming and focus on tourism.
Tourism should rightly be a part of the local economy, but if a region starts to model itself after a region that tourism has eaten and ruined.
I understand why stories like this are pitched as they gain traction, however, if the approach is to make Galloway Cornwall, it will only turn Galloway into a ghost town populated by second homeowners.
Kirkbright is the canary in the coal mine. If the National Park goes ahead, Galloway could become the new Cornwall.