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St Austell Police noticed two vehicles that had “travelled down from out of Cornwall.” Both tried to make off, but the police were quick to the chase. The two cars were successfully stopped and seized. “Some occupants arrested, along with COVID-19 fines issued to others,” St Austell Police said in a statement.
This could be the first police car chase of COVID-19. But it is unlikely to be the last. As I previously reported, people in rural areas, like Cornwall in Southwest England, are fearful of incomers who could spread the virus.
When the U.K.’s lockdown begun, that fear was manifest through local grumblings and signs warding off tourists and surfers.
Several weeks on, local hostility has surged alongside the U.K.’s death toll. There is palatable fear that incomers will bring coronavirus into shops and the county’s only hospital, and locals are now prepared to do something about it.
The council have asked people in Cornwall to report holiday accommodation that they think is being rented to tourists. In just a week 650 properties have been reported, many of them Airbnb listings.
With over 10,000 Cornish properties, Airbnb is singled out for much of the blame. The U.K.’s minister for tourism, Nigel Huddleston, accused the company of “irresponsible and dangerous behaviour” after people were found using the platform for “isolation retreats.”
Only on Wednesday (18 April), two days before the Easter break did Airbnb respond, saying in a statement it would limit “all new UK bookings for stays up to at least 18 April 2020 to key workers and essential stays.”
“It is better late than never but really it is too bloody late,” Malcolm Bell, chief executive of Visit Cornwall told local news website Cornish Stuff.
Still, hardened holiday makers are finding a way around the police and booking platforms. Many are suspected of making a midnight dash for Cornwall and other popular parts of Southwest England. Under the cover of darkness nobody can see their loaded cars and caravans wind along country lanes to coastal cottages and campsites.
“There was nobody there yesterday,” says one local farmer of a holiday cottage adjacent to him. “But when I went to check the cows early on, it was all lights on and cars in the driveway.”
A few are taking to light vigilantism. The local Facebook group, set up to help the vulnerable with food deliveries, is instead filled with neighbourhood-watch reports. “I’ve just seen two scruffy young guys with rucksacks taking a lot of interest in houses up Rosemundy,” reported one. Another floated the idea of an “unofficial road block” to stop people using Chapel Porth car park to popular support.
Chapel Porth in Cornwall, England.
In St Ives, local residents have erected a barricade with a scrawled sign saying “vulnerable residents” to stop people coming down the street to their homes. The picturesque seaside town has already banned non-locals from buying newly built houses in order to stop the spread of second homes.
But as police chase cars (and even deploy patrol boats) in the Southwest, many accuse them of being too heavy handed.
The U.K.’s home secretary, Priti Patel, criticised Nick Adderley, chief constable of Northamptonshire, for suggesting police could start checking items in supermarket trolleys to prove whether their journeys were essential.
“This is not about heavy-handed law enforcement. There is a balance to this,” she told Talkradio. (Adderley later clarified on Twitter that his officers would not be searching people’s shopping.)
In Cornwall, business-owners fret that such heavy handedness could put tourists off visiting the county entirely. As a mainstay of the region’s economy, that would only make a bad situation much worse.
