Cornish fishermen who use Helford Village to land their fish have been stopped from building a new jetty by a “Village Society” dominated by second home owners, many living in London.

Tonight, Wednesday, a special BBC 1 documentary Inside Out shown at 7.30pm looks at the problem.

Cornwall is the “second homes capital” of Britain. One in 20 properties are second homes, 13,000 in all. In more desirable parishes the percentage is said to jump to 25 per cent.

For more than five years frustrated fisherman Chris Bean has been heading attempts to build a jetty in creek on the Helford River.

He says: “This is virtually the last landing site in the UK for fish without proper landing facilities and there’s a million pounds worth of fish goes across this beach every year. It’s easily a viable proposition.”

Plans for the new jetty and roadway were approved by Kerrier district council almost two years ago to the satisfaction of local conservation bodies.

But it is on hold because members of the Helford Village Society have forced a judicial review of the council’s decision. It will cost Kerrier a considerable amount of money to put their case and local council tax payers will have to foot the bill.

Local councillor Pam Lyne has been delivering milk in Helford for fifty years but, as the rate of second home owners has grown, her customers have shrunk in numbers to just a handful.

“It’s because they think it’s a sensible way forward for the fishermen who work here all the year round. We appreciate what hard work it is having to drag everything up over the beach. Most of the objections are from people who only come here for short periods of time. They do not actually live in the village. It is not their place of residence, it is their holiday home.”

Fifty of Helford’s 80 properties are unoccupied for most of the year. The Helford Village Society is the main source of opposition to the new jetty scheme.

The district council received 170 letters of objection. Several people sent letters both from their Helford and their main properties.

Nick Jacobs, who has had a second home in Helford for more than 30 years has spoken to the BBC programme.

From his office in Mayfair, where he runs an asset management company, he said: “It’s a beautiful, special spot. Do I want to see a new road along the seashore? Do I want to see a new car park there? Do I want to see industrial use there, with a lot of concrete, vehicles parked, that sort of thing? No. Helford is a proper balanced community. There are a lot of second homes but those places are rented out. It’s an industry, it’s called tourism and it supports local people and for it to be portrayed as a bunch of wealthy, disinterested, distant people is very, very unfair.”

Chris Bean claims the Village Society is scaremongering, saying: “It’s been grossly exaggerated. The track-way that will give access to the quay follows the shoreline, it’ll be a foot or two high, tucked in right under the bank and it’ll be faced up with local stone with little granite kerbing on the top. It’ll weather in, kelp will grow on the front of it and in a year or two you wouldn’t know it was there.”

In nearby Manaccan Martyn Warner, who once worked with Rick Stein at Padstow, opened South Café to cater for the increasing number of celebrities and well heeled punters attracted to the area. Locally caught fresh fish is a speciality and much of it comes from Chris Bean.

Martyn says: “Chris’ fish is the best, it doesn’t get any better than that. I think the new jetty is a good thing for the fishermen. It’ll be a lot safer for them, a lot easier for them to land their fish and the quality will be a lot better because there will be a lot less handling. It’ll go straight from the boat and in through my kitchen door.”

The judicial review should come to a decision in the next couple of months.

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