Cornwall must lose its fear of building rather than whinge about over tourism, according to a self-confessed 'emmet'. Tanya Gold wrote an opinion piece for the about the issues faced by Cornwall and suggested a possible solution. Comparing to other European hotspots prized by tourists, such as Venice or Barcelona, where local residents have had enough of mass tourism, Mrs Gold said she hated all tourists at first after she moved to Newlyn with her family and regarded Mousehole down the road as "a ghastly portent filled with nautical-themed décor".
Following a trip to the Isles of Scilly, where she did what tourists do when visiting the beautiful archipelago, she realised that tourism is not the problem - the lack of housing for local people is. And best of all, she's got the solution - just build more! About her Scillonian escapade, she wrote: "I visited the Isles of Scilly, which are curiously bourgeois for their savage landscape, and bought a piece of ornamental driftwood for £10 while the custodian scowled at me for stamping on her paradise. I thought: you only live here due to the benevolence of the British taxpayer.
If it wasn’t for us, you’d be living in 1290. You can take the crowds for 10 weeks. "Now I smile at tourists, because I don’t want to live elsewhere, and they are stuck with elsewhere, and my friend owns an ice-cream van.
It’s still true that Cornwall is dying. Nautical-themed décor is not the problem. Pastiche grates because it is mocking – it.