Can I refuse to deliver to second home owners?

[Dorset Plodder]

Imagine the scenario: A police car turns up at someone's second home, with Blue Flashing Light for Dramatic Effect. .........

"Evening All, I understand you have chosen to ignore the Government's Health Guidlines and have in fact not isolated yourself in your Family home. On your return from your Holiday in Italy you instead though you'd drive a hundred miles to your second home in this sleepy country village .... stopping at the Local bakers and corner shop to possibly infect others. You have one hour to pack your bags .... return to your Family Home in London .... where one of my colleagues from the Metropolitan Police will be round within 24 hours to check you've arrived there, and are in fact self isolating .... If you chose to disregard this request we will self isolate you in one of Her Majesty's Prisons .... there's a lot more room in them now.... Goodday"!

Now that would be interesting to watch.

[meercat]

A lot of people do register their cars down here because it's cheaper than London insurance.

So you are saying people who own a £1M Cornwall home and presumably a £1M London home register their car insurance in Cornwall to save £100 a year?

I see, yes of course.

You do seem to be very prejudiced against second home owners as do a lot of people in Cornwall. I can understand the local issues caused (mainly higher house prices) but three points to remember.

-If you had the money you'd have a second home, maybe in Spain.
-Cornwall would be an impoverished backwater with very much higher unemployment if it wasn't for holiday makers from the rest of the country and London visiting and spending their money there.
-Just as you have the legal and moral right right to buy a London flat, Londoners have the same rights to buy a house in Cornwall, so why the double standards? Have you seen how badly London house market is suffering from incomers? Tens of thousands of Londoners leave London each year as they can't afford to live there anymore. That's life, it's not all a bed of roses.

[sorefeet17]

A lot of people do register their cars down here because it's cheaper than London insurance.

So you are saying people who own a £1M Cornwall home and presumably a £1M London home register their car insurance in Cornwall to save £100 a year?

I see, yes of course.

You do seem to be very prejudiced against second home owners as do a lot of people in Cornwall. I can understand the local issues caused (mainly higher house prices) but three points to remember.

-If you had the money you'd have a second home, maybe in Spain.
-Cornwall would be an impoverished backwater with very much higher unemployment if it wasn't for holiday makers from the rest of the country and London visiting and spending their money there.
-Just as you have the legal and moral right right to buy a London flat, Londoners have the same rights to buy a house in Cornwall, so why the double standards? Have you seen how badly London house market is suffering from incomers? Tens of thousands of Londoners leave London each year as they can't afford to live there anymore. That's life, it's not all a bed of roses.

Theres a difference between holiday makers and second home owners, Cornwall had holiday makers before all the second home owners bought half the county, second home owners don't bring in much money if they only use a property for one or two weeks a year! village shops and pubs close because half the properties are empty of people.
Spain doesn't have a housing crisis apart from some large cities, and personally I still wouldn't buy a second home there or anywhere.
If there was enough affordable housing for everyone second homes wouldn't be so much of an issue.

[Tman]

[but in any case it does beg the question are some people earning too much? I know their are some wasters on the streets who never wanted to work but most would like a job a home and a life even if they have other problems like drink drugs and mental health issues we need a better society after this challenge to us all.

And you can solve all those perennial issues by making sure some people don't earn too much?

[wacko74]

Starting to veer off topic a bit but I don't accept the often quoted claim that ''without tourism these places would be impoverished backwaters''... even with tourism these places are essentially still impoverished backwaters.

I'm a firm believer that the so called ''economic benefits'' of tourism in general are greatly over exaggerated and are usually just spouted by the very small number of vested interests (tourism related business owners) who do happen to make a very comfortable living from the tourists they cater for.

For the vast majority of locals in tourist hotspots all tourism offers is a few crappy part time, seasonal, minimum wage jobs that pay little more than pocket money, mostly for students or semi-retired types... whilst the socio-economic downsides of tourism are many and varied, number one being hugely inflated local house prices thanks to all the holiday home/holiday let buyers.

Someone on a full time postman's wage would probably be classed a ''middle earner'' in my particular location, yet even so average local house prices are over 8x my gross pay.

Anyway back on topic... https://nation.cymru/news/second-home-o ... hem-times/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[clashcityrocker]

As for the supposedly ''valid'' reasons that you're desperately trying to offer, I think you're demonstrating that the real problem today is actually too much misguided and misplaced compassion... usually displayed by weak minded and gullible liberal types who for whatever reason find themselves insulated from the realities of life and allow themselves to be brainwashed into being the modern day ''useful idiots'' of the Corporatists and Globalists who are doing so much damage to the vast majority of society whilst enhancing the wealth of the wealthiest few.

Thank you for that valuable insight into your user name.
I'll tell you what Negan - you keep a good hold of Lucille and I will remain faithful to Carl's dream (weak minded and gullible "useful idiots" that we are) and I'll see you at Hilltop.

[Woody Guthrie]

I'm used to seeing the word liberal used as a pejorative term, to be honest it's a right wing American thing and I don't think most of the people using it in the UK actually use it properly or understand what liberal means so I'll let that pass.

I have to say though that's the first time I've seen compassion used in that way. That's a new low in a low bar world.

Compassion... misguided and misplaced.
Jesus wept.
Obviously he was the first gullible liberal with misguided and misplaced compassion.

[Dorset Plodder]

Thank you for that valuable insight into your user name.
I'll tell you what Negan - you keep a good hold of Lucille and I will remain faithful to Carl's dream (weak minded and gullible "useful idiots" that we are) and I'll see you at Hilltop.

I like the TWD references clash. It's not quite that bad at the moment but give it a few more months of lockdown. It's a good job we don't bear arms in this country, or people would be really losing it at the supermarkets!

[meercat]

I'm a firm believer that the so called ''economic benefits'' of tourism in general are greatly over exaggerated

Well look at it this way, 25% of the GDP of Cornwall is provided by tourists. And 1 in 5 jobs are provided by the tourist industry.

The significance would be hard to exaggerate for Cornwall. Remove that and the job losses would be 20X more per capita for the people of Cornwall than the loss of the miners jobs were to the nation of Wales.

Some tourist related jobs are low-paid, (many non-tourist jobs are low paid) some are seasonal, some a well paid and year round. Some jobs are hotel managers, surf instructing, camp site owners, running a cafe, a pottery, running a B and B, teaching survival skills or taking people trekking on horseback - these are DREAM jobs for a lot of people.

A job is a job at the end of the day and with a minimum wage and in-work benefits available any job is better than sitting on the dole with no future in a forgotten corner of England. Many such places exist.

You can't buy a house in Cornwall (or much of the country for that matter) with a low paid job sure, you also can't buy a house with no job so the overall impact of second home owners and tourists (the two go hand in hand and are inseparable) is not black and white.