Salcombe – “Council tried to create a wedge between us and tourists – but our town needs them to survive.” (Image: William Dax / SWNS)
Salcombe, the chic Devon resort known as ‘Chelsea-on-Sea,’ is at the heart of a controversial ‘tourist tax’ storm that threatens to rock the very foundations of the picturesque coastal town’s economy. A council crackdown on tourism sees second home owners—who account for about 60% of local properties—and visitors facing steep charges, with second homes already paying double the council tax and now slammed with differential parking costs.
South Hams District Council’s new parking scheme disproportionally affects tourists, who are charged up to £10 to park for a day, while locals have the option of a £5 annual pass allowing daily parking for just £8. Business owners, relying heavily on holidaymakers for their livelihood, fear this move could turn away much-needed visitors, after observing a quieter Easter than usual.
Beck Gordon, owner of Salcombe Yawl cafe and Norman’s Fishmonger, voiced his predicament: “It’s a can of worms. I don’t even know where to start.” He lamented over the lost balance between permanent residents and second homeowners but recognised the necessity of tourism for business survival: “In an ideal world, we’d have far more locals living here than second homes and the kids would be able to afford to stay here and everything else, but in reality the town needs the tourism because it has become what it is and these businesses only survive because we’ve got tourism here.”
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Business owners in Salcombe fear for the town’s future following a council-driven “tourism tax” levied against second home owners and holidaymakers. (Image: William Dax / SWNS)
Noticeably, he adds that the demographic of visitors seems to be shifting, with an increase in families taking holidays compared to those owning second homes. Local business owner Beck, who has been a resident for seven years, expressed deep concern over the decline in tourism and the impact of parking issues on her town. “It’s quieter generally. The parking’s definitely an issue,” she remarked.
She recounted conversations with customers about the difficulty with parking charges: “It was only yesterday I had guys in here talking about parking charges and how it’s really hard to make the machines work. It’s all just reasons not to come, isn’t it?” Beck noted a significant drop in local day trippers: “In terms of day trippers, if you talk about more local people, they definitely don’t come anymore.”
She also mentioned that visitors from further afield, such as Plymouth and Exeter, are deterred by parking difficulties: “The daytrippers coming in from Plymouth, Exeter, those places – when we chat to them, they’re definitely put off by how hard it is to park and by how expensive it is to come, for sure.”
The seasonal nature of her business adds to the strain, with operations limited to April through October: “100 per cent it’s a worry. Our season is so short; we can only afford to stay open from April to October.” The lack of winter tourism forces closures: “We have no choice but to close because we can’t pay someone to stand here when there is no tourism in the winter now.”
Despite these challenges, an “okay” Easter, helped by favourable weather, provided some relief: “Her worst fears were allayed by an ‘okay’ Easter, which she credits the good weather with.” However, bad weather poses another problem: “For us, the minute the weather’s not good, nobody wants to stand at the counter and get a takeaway,” she explained.
Beck is “massively” worried about the future and the noticeable decrease in visitor numbers. Reflecting on the changes since she moved to the area, Beck observed a stark contrast to pre-Covid times: “It’s really hard to work out why it’s changed because it’s so complicated. But pre-Covid, it was almost twice as busy in summer. You couldn’t walk or drive down the street; it was like a sea of people.”
Business owners in Salcombe fear for the town’s future following a council-driven “tourism tax” levied against second home owners and holidaymakers. (Image: William Dax / SWNS)
Post-pandemic seasons initially saw a surge due to travel restrictions, but there has been a downturn since: “We had two crazy seasons after Covid because obviously people couldn’t go anywhere and since then, I would say we have been 30 or 40 per cent down.
“Businesses change really regularly. I’ve noticed this year a gallery has had to rent out one side of its unit. Jack Wills has just gone, which has been here forever and ever. We see shops change all the time because they can’t survive. It’s that frustration of, if everywhere stayed open then people would come, but you’ve got to get to that point. It’s a no-win and we’re not in a place where we can change it.”
She is calling on the council to do “anything and everything” to boost tourism, including promoting the park-and-ride scheme, which she praises as a “really good facility”, or offering free parking. It needs to be made as accessible and inviting as possible to keep the town alive,” she insists.
Beck also said: “The message from the council needs to be: ‘We want you here, come’ and we need to make it easier not harder to be here because the businesses won’t survive if the barriers keep going up.” Town workers are also voicing their frustrations over increased parking charges affecting employees who travel from outside the area.
Beck further commented: “We can’t park. They won’t give us a business permit, for whatever reason – they say we don’t meet the criteria. We can’t afford to park in the car parks everyday and walk down. We end up juggling our vans around and diving out the door in a queue. Sometimes you get lucky and the parking guys don’t come round for one or two days so you end up with maybe two parking tickets a week – but it’s cheaper to pay for one or two parking tickets a week than it is to park in the car park, which is absolutely ridiculous.
“We probably pay anywhere between £25 and £50 a week in parking tickets whereas if we parked in the car park it would cost us £70. We have a WhatsApp group amongst the high street shops and there’s a lot of chat on there about parking.”
A cafe boss who asked to stay anonymous lamented over the recent hike in parking fees punishing local workers. She confessed: “It’s a difficult one. I think on the whole, they had a good Easter. I think the worst thing for us is staff and their parking. I pay £10.60 a day. I could walk from the top of the hill but I might have a heart attack and die. I think we are stung by parking.
“I think it’s affecting workers in the town. Because I park before 8am, I have to go for 24-hour parking at Creek car park, which is ridiculous. Yes, I can buy a parking permit, but that’s so much money and I only work three days a week. £120 of my wages is parking. I pay the cheaper one but it’s still a lot of money.
“Easter was very good. I think people still came. We wouldn’t survive without tourists. I do not support the parking increases. Just because they’ve got a second home doesn’t mean they should be penalised for it.
“We’re all in different financial positions in our lives. I had a business here for 32 years. Without these people and without the holiday homes and without any of it, I wouldn’t have had a business without the tourism. We live in a tourism area – which is why I kind of suck up the parking.”
Another shopkeeper expressed her concern about whether the high prices would deter local tourists. She remarked: “There were several comments generally that the town wasn’t as busy as normal. There are so many people with an awful lot of money that have properties in Salcombe, those increases probably wouldn’t worry them too much but that doesn’t include people visiting for the day, I don’t know whether that would put them off.”
However, businesses that benefited from the housing boom reported a successful Easter. New entrepreneur Bonnie Kouki, 38, shared: “We had a pretty good Easter. We are such a new business, we have never done an Easter, so it was the unknown.
“We’re tucked away as well but we were okay.” Last year, she launched her sandwich shop Mrs Cookies, which offers affordable meals and is popular among builders working on luxury homes. Bonnie added: “I’m local anyway so I understand how Salcombe works. We opened in October, so that was the hardest part of the year and we’re still standing and have come out of that time with a profit.
“We didn’t lose any money in those quieter periods. But we appeal to a lot of builders and there’s a lot of building work going on and by keeping our prices a bit lower because we are tucked away, it really does help what we do.” She is optimistic that her business will draw locals back into the town, revitalising the tourism sector—not just catering to second home owners.
Owners of second-homes – which make up around 60 per cent of the properties in the picturesque seaside town in Devon – are already charged double council tax. (Image: William Dax / SWNS)
Bonnie remarked: “Within Salcombe a lot of families won’t venture into town because it is so expensive. I’ve got three children – to come out for lunch somewhere in town you’re looking at £100. Trying to keep that reasonable and encourage locals in, I think that helps. I’ve grown up here and a lot of locals do avoid the town during the summer months especially because it does get so busy.
“I’ve been speaking to changeover cleaners and people that look after holiday homes and I can see that there are gaps whereas 10 years ago it would have been completely full. Even a lady this morning said she is seeing more short breaks rather than bookings but that is better for us as it brings in two lots of families. Although she’s got bookings in, it’s not the volume she would have had.”
Cllr Julian Brazil, Executive Lead for Community Services and Operations, South Hams District Council, stated: “We welcome all our visitors to the South Hams and our parking charges are still some of the cheapest places to park in the South of the country and within the South West.
“We’d like to do everything to help the tourism trade and we have kept our car parking charges as competitive as possible. Residents of the South Hams can benefit from our discounted Resident Parking Scheme. Many workers in Salcombe have benefited from our competitive parking permits which offer significantly lower long-term parking compared to our pay on the day rates. “Be under no illusion, we don’t want to increase prices, but this is the best choice for us under the circumstances we find ourselves in. Our prices have been frozen for four years, and now everyone who benefits from our public services are being asked to contribute, and that includes our visitors.
“The council always planned to review the scheme after the first 6 months and decide if any changes are needed. But clearly if there is anything that is obviously wrong, which can always happen in a big change like this then we will look to rectify that straight away.”