Retirees bombarding our beautiful rural seaside area

I agree it is bad that locals can't afford to buy houses in their own area, but house price rises can't all be the incomers' fault, surely. When we moved to a market town (admittedly not a poor one) we didn't choose the price of our house so as to 'outcompete' locals. Anyone could have bought it. But I do think it's very sad that there are villages such as one we visited a while ago on the coast where only one house is lived in all year round, so there are no shops or services any more. There may be many reasons for a community failing, but it is a real shame. Some places in Cornwall are voting for local plans that ban new homes being used as second/holiday homes; perhaps more should follow their example. But, again, they admit that holidaymakers spend money and help the economy, so you can't really say one side is good and the other bad.

yes maw I am moving soon, away from a small village which is not suitable for someone who will need buses and local shops
craftyone I have never understood why older people do want to "Escape to the country" to, perhaps, an isolated house with an acre of garden.
All too soon they may find they would have been better off in or on the edge of a small town or even a large village where there may be the amenities they need within easy reach or on a bus route.

We've moved around too, Nonnie (work, redundancy etc) and I did ask DH why we're still here years on instead of moving to the coast (not as incomers, more as 'returners' after 40 years).
He replied 'Inertia'!

but local people are the ones selling their homes to ' outsiders' aren't they?

No. For the most part it is their landlords. Or their landlords relatives when they die.

A lot of these type of properties are bought 2 at a time, i.e. 2 semis, amd knocked through. So instead of previously 2 affordable family homes you now have one huge exclusively expensive redeveloped one.

One couple have bought up a house that had been 4 flats and converted it back to a massive victorian house.

Planning does generally frown upon reducing housing stock but these people know the loopholes. And depending on how it was classified in the first place it can be done. 4 affordable homes become one expensivs one.

Its also hsppening to bungalows, previously saught out by average income retirees who want to convert them to make them suit their needs as they age.. but now they are being gutted and extended out and up making them multilevel and unaffordable/unmanagable. So long as there is already one converted on a road the others can argue for planning.

Nonnie apply some logic. How are locals to "benefit" from the worldly wise ways of incommers if they aren't there any more.

Craftyone give it time. Now that our more picture perfect villages have become gentrified and mini London suburbs... people are looking further affield for their "bargain projects"

JE funny you mention tradesmen actually. This is something the incommers who completely took our a village near me complain bitterly about: there ARE NO TRADESMEN THERE. There used to be....... when they could afford to live in the area!

Now they are all squabbling over out of town tradespeople who wont do full days on site as the roads in and out are so conjested that they would loose money sitting in traffic if they aimed to get on site first thing! They make more doing a few smaller jobs nearer home.

So now there are a tonne of half gutted ex bungalows and ex deconverted flats and some of them are giving up and putting these uninhabitable husks of houses back on the market for more than they paid for it intact to claw back what they spent so far.....needless to say these uninhabitable carcasses arent selling. The NEW newcommers, funnily enough, dont want to live in a now predominantly newcommer town either, so have set their sites elsewhere

I am sensing an awful lot of extrapolation notanan from your personal experience which may be perfectly valid in the instances you quote but cannot be assumed to be the case everywhere and with everyone.
It can be very dangerous to extrapolate from the particular to the general - you will be proved wrong as often as you claim to be proved right!

Housing developers now have to include social housing mixed or low value houses mixed up with more expensive houses.
Nah only if the development is over a certain amount of units. A series of smaller developments = no social housing component.

They are looking for a different lifestyle after years of being on the treadmill
City dwellers are not the only ones who worked hard prior to retirement. Rural retirees worked hard too, and are amongst those being evicted for cash buyers to turn their building into a grand designs project!

One couple have bought up a house that had been 4 flats and converted it back to a massive victorian house

Am I alone in thinking that is a good, rather than a bad, thing? Restoring a Victorian house sympathetically is surely better than some of the dreadful conversions into flats that took place in the 1960s or 70s or even later.

My view is personal and I do think that more affordable housing is needed also.

Yes, they will have money to spend. Most of it will be the very large sum they have from selling a house in a better paid, more expensive property area and with their larger capital sum....

Well, I can tell you that people who live in large towns in the North and the Midlands can look at property in seaside tons but probabaly cannot afford to buy it, if their lifestyle is modest/ordinary.

Coastal property every where tends to be very expensive. I looked a few years ago, to see what OH and I could get if we sold our homes. To live in a house of similar size, which ticked our boxes - reasonably big garden, (or at least a decent plot) driveway and non-estate being three of them, we just couldn't afford them, or would have had to spend a huge sum doing them up.

I imagine people in some parts of the south can buy in desirable coastal areas, and perhaps people who sell up in desirable suburbs of big cities houses but that is not true of everyone in the UK. Coastal property is at a premium - if you want a few facilities in the area too.

Head ruled heart for us and we bought in a new area but still within range of our children and DGC. So, you are safe Specs. We won't be moving near you any time soon.

Callistemon the style of victorian house in question was built to accomodate staff as well as owners. They were never built to house just 2 people!

How can four affordable homes becoming one very unaffordable one be a good thing.

And who said that the conversion was "sympathetic", and even if it was, what good to the community is a museum just for two???

notanan you said: "apply some logic. How are locals to "benefit" from the worldly wise ways hmm of incommers if they aren't there any more." I would suggest that you are the one who needs to 'apply some logic' In your Op you said: "Many of us are related, have long working relationships with each other, our children went to school together, we have kept local traditions going, supported countryside sports, football, rowing etc. In other words we have deep understanding and ties with each other and the land. We know the skeletons in our neighbours cupboards and that also bonds us." which would seem to imply that the 'indigenous' people are there still. If you are saying they 'aren't there any more' what is the problem, that bird has flown?

Callistemon then you are just as bad as us! You wicked people moving around the country, how dare you!

And what of the 4 households evicted for this cash buyers project?

How can it be a good thing... when this isnt happening in isolation so where will those 4 households go?

These are your tradespeople, shop workers, pharmacy staff etc that apparently the incommers are going to keep in a job

I think you are arguing just for the sake of it notanan2

I presume you know this house well and are not happy with the type of conversion and do not consider it to be 'sympathetic'.

The council should be building more modern, affordable housing, easy to maintain and keep warm. Victorian houses converted into flats will still have high ceilings, draughty corners etc and generally are not suitable as 'affordable homes'.

In rapidly reducing numbers Nonnie.

Such arrogance to assume that rural dwellers know nothing of the world and should sit down and be told by the wise hard working ex city dwellers!

I presume you know this house well and are not happy with the type of conversion and do not consider it to be 'sympathetic'

I actually pointed out that how sympathetic it is or isnt is irrelevant to the community since it only benefits the 2 people who now live there...

What is problematic is that people who take on these projects have a NEGATIVE impact on the community they displace to make way for it.

Nonnie we've been here for a long time now (only came here for two years but never left!).
If we went back to our 'roots' we'd be looked on as 'incomers' now.

As I have said over and over. There's nothing to stop them. But they are kidding themselves if they think they are doing a favour to anyone but themselves!

What is problematic is that people who take on these projects have a NEGATIVE impact on the community they displace to make way for it.
What about falling-down-barn conversions? Are they a problem too?

And what of the 4 households evicted for this cash buyers project?
Are these people you know personally? Why is your local council not doing more?
I am just wondering which rural community you live in, notanan2 and what has happened in your area to upset you so?

notanan you said "In rapidly reducing numbers Nonnie.

Such arrogance to assume that rural dwellers know nothing of the world and should sit down and be told by the wise hard working ex city dwellers!" Really? Where did I say that? I think you need to look at what I said after removing all your prejudice.

Of course you and your neighbours may think you know everything but that would make you and your villagers very arrogant wouldn't it? Travel has broadened my mind as has meeting new people, wherever they come from but then I have an open mind and are interested in new people.

Retirees bombarding our beautiful rural seaside area

The definition of bombarding is: attack (a place or person) continuously with bombs, shells, or other missiles.

I'm not surprised you're upset Specs.

I know the property Callistemon and have been inside when it was (generous/spacious) characterful flats because I know someone who rented there at one point. The whole top floor flat was ex staff quarters. It was NEVER a house for 2!

As I said before you in theory should not be reducing housing stock in this way according to local planning priorities. But there are loopholes depending on how conversions were classified.

Theres nothing to stoo cash buyers doing this. Nothing at all. But locals CANT compete, and it doesnt positively impact the wider community. At all.

I also personally know an ex London couple whose bungalow conversion is at a total standstill. (Yes. I am friends with INDIVIDUALS who are newcommers, it is the overall effect/phenomenon that makes me sad!) because tradespeople have had to move further out themselves. There are no local ones, and its hard to get them to travel in!

I've come back to this thread to report that today in Scotland I've seen not exactly No Trespassers signs but ones that state 'Private Property No Entry'.

The owners of the land are as Scottish as anyone could be and they must also be ardent SNP voters, if the banners that go up at election time and the prolific YES signs that adorned their property during Indyref are anything to go by, so not quite Paddyann's portrait of the perfidious English.

What's more they gain a comfortable income from those same perfidious English folks, both local-dwellers and visitors, who use the tourist/catering facilities they operate!

Just noticed that I made a mistake and quoted notanan instead of the OP, sorry. Actually no one has noticed and I haven't had a reply but I do apologise when wrong.

Best keep quiet about that Gillybob, if you want to keep it so. That area is being gentrified too. The NE village where I lived has lost its shops, post office and bank, and primary school since the 1970s, so these centres of village life have departed.