Opinion

Bimpe Archer: I must be one of the few people who doesn’t know someone with a holiday home here

Tens of thousands turned up on the north coast last March, with many staying in second homes, holiday homes and packed caravan parks. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
Tens of thousands turned up on the north coast last March, with many staying in second homes, holiday homes and packed caravan parks. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin Tens of thousands turned up on the north coast last March, with many staying in second homes, holiday homes and packed caravan parks. Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

THE nights are fairly drawing in, aren’t they?

It’s always tickled me that summer starts just as the sunlight begins to wane. It just seems like a bit of a design flaw and summer solstice should really be at the end of July, or even mid-August given how temperate September can be.

Now that summer is officially here my fancy is turning inexorably to thoughts of holidays.

Even without a global pandemic I still wouldn't be quite brave enough to seriously consider taking my two young children overseas, not least because I can’t fully be trusted to bring both back home from school when it’s my pick-up day (Look, I also have the dog on a lead, there are masks happening and a lot of children all wearing the same clothes milling around - it can all get quite chaotic, OK?)

I do feel for people who have had to take the decision to reschedule foreign holidays booked for summer 2020, after giving up hope of taking them this year.

There’s always that nagging fear 2019’s notion will have left you by 2022, but you’ll be forced to sit by a pool sipping grimly on your cocktail while your body fills its boots with Vitamin D. Then again, maybe not.

I’ve resumed my annual pastime of trying to sniff out and befriend anyone with a holiday home far enough to make packing the boot worthwhile, but close enough to limit the number of sick bags stacked in the back seat of the car.

“Oh you’re going to Castlerock with the family? How lovely. Have you ever thought of buying your own holiday home there?” went one conversation at the swimming pool while watching the Archer minors flail about ineffectually.

I’m a bit like a dog chasing a car, it’s the thrill of the hunt really. I probably wouldn’t know what to do with a friend with a holiday home if I actually found one. It would just add more layers of social awkwardness to an already uncomfortable scenario.

However, it seems I must be one of the few people in Northern Ireland who doesn’t know someone with a holiday home here.

East Derry assembly member Claire Sugden has sounded the alarm about the toll second homes are taking on the communities they are bought in.

Her scenic constituency is badly affected - “in many areas it’s becoming almost impossible to buy or even rent a house”.

Following two years of enforced `staycations’ and corresponding spikes in second home purchases, the next census is likely to show an increase on the levels a decade ago which put the numbers in Portballintrae, Castlerock and Portstewart at 58, 32 and 28 per cent respectively.

Ms Sugden is pushing for the Executive and councils to move to protect communities and ensure families can find and afford a house in their own town.

“Without long-term residents, local businesses suffer, schools become under subscribed and the feeling of community is damaged,” she warned, conjuring the spectre of “areas such as Cornwall and Devon in England, where this trend had been happening for years, creating `ghost-town’ communities outside the holiday months”.

I had thought the possibilities created by the new working from home phenomenon would have led to more people permanently relocating from Belfast and its environs – which while not solving the problem of local access to homes would keep school numbers steady and businesses thriving.

If the Executive survives the next three or four crises, communities minister Deirdre Hargey may be able to complete her planned Social Housing Development Programme looking at areas in most need and Housing Executive House Sales Scheme.

That’s obviously a big `if’, so there is a strong possibility that, as so often, Northern Ireland is doomed to fail to learn from the mistakes of its neighbour and will lose the very thing which make its attractions so special – the people.

Although, Cornwall and Devon you say…