Cornwall kept off ‘best places’ list to ease crisis

THE compilers of a guide on the best places to live in Britain say they left Cornwall off the list because they did not believe it was right to encourage more people to move there.

Residents in parts of the Duchy feared they had been snubbed by the creators of the coveted annual ‘Best Places to Live’ guide, produced by The Sunday Times and released last Friday.

In 2019, Falmouth appeared; in 2020, Wadebridge and Mylor both appeared; and in 2021 both the Lizard Peninsula and Wadebridge featured on the list.

This year, Cornwall’s towns and villages are nowhere to be found. Now the editor of the list has explained they had considered Cornish locations – but decided to leave them off the list to try to help ease the housing crisis.

Helen Davies, editor of guide, said: “The influx of wealthy second-homers has hollowed out many holiday hot-spots out of season, and sent house prices spiralling out of all proportion to wages, making it impossible for many people born and bred in the county to get a foothold in the county.

“We hope that Cornwall’s absence from the Best Places to Live list will add to the debate about what can be done to ensure that the county can provide homes for its native population, as well as for wealthy holidaymakers whose commitment to Cornish communities can be part-time at best.”

However, she said Cornwall’s absence from the list “in no way means that the team does not appreciate what’s on offer in Cornwall”.

She said: “We’ve always loved Cornwall at The Sunday Times. Its absence from this year’s list doesn’t mean that we don’t appreciate what’s on offer in its many beautiful towns and villages.

“We gave very serious consideration to including many of them.

“For example, Fowey (pictured, left), the Lizard Peninsula, up-andcoming Penzance, Falmouth and Truro would all have been worth their places on the list.

“However, we felt that, given the well-publicised difficulties in the country’s property market, we didn’t think it was healthy or right to encourage more people from outside the county to think about moving there.”

On this year’s list, Wiltshire’s Chalke Valley, home of the popular Chalke Valley History Festival, was crowned the best in the South West, with a number of other locations in Devon, Dorset and Somerset appearing, including Ashburton, Budleigh Salterton, Bridport and Wellow, near Bath.