Remote Coastal Communities

Kevin McKenna Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Perran Moon]

I entirely agree, and I will address that later in my speech.

The second pressure is seasonal demand from tourism. While the visitor economy has long held strategic value for coastal communities, the seasonal influx of tourists places immense strain on already creaking public services, such as waste collection, highways, beach safety and emergency response, which face significant seasonal surges. Those fluctuations are not captured in standard funding models, yet they have real budgetary impact. Tourism can bring prosperity, but also pressure. In Cornwall, summer means more traffic, more waste and more emergency calls, and significantly higher costs than those associated with the resident population alone.

[Kevin McKenna (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab)]

My constituency is a lot closer to here than the constituency of my hon. Friend—it is just a bit further down the Thames. We have a strong tourist economy, but due to the housing pressures across the country these days, the housing and accommodation on the Isle of Sheppey hides a masked community living in holiday accommodation all year round, particularly in caravans. That is not picked up in the Government data at either a national or local level. I am interested to hear from my hon. Friend whether that is a problem for him as well; in my community, it means that we have high levels of deprivation that simply are not being accounted for in the current Government spending plans or formulae. I welcome the Government’s revision to the spending formulae, which will help my constituency, but we could go further.

[Perran Moon]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Again, I will come on to that a little later in my speech.

On higher costs, the pressure that is felt most acutely by residents of Camborne, Redruth and Hayle, as I hear on the doorstep or in constituency surgeries, is housing. Coastal housing markets, shaped by seasonal appeal, have a high proportion of second homes and short-term holiday lets, which significantly reduces supply and drives prices beyond the means of local people, while many of those homes sit empty for months. I appreciate the decisions that this Government have made on stamp duty to dampen demand for second homes, but I was horrified to hear last week that the Reform party suggests that the excessive purchase of second homes in Cornwall is not a problem. I am disappointed that Reform Members are not here now.