Our picturesque seaside haven is being overtaken by holiday park…tourists will outnumber locals so we’re fighting back
RESIDENTS who say their picturesque seaside haven is being overtaken by a holiday park are fighting back before tourists outnumber locals.
Perched on a rolling hillside on the idyllic North Cornwall coast, luxury holiday resort Gwel an Mor has plans to expand.
The park, which sits above Portreath and has around 150 lodges, is owned and run by Cove UK, a subsidiary of American-owned Cove Communities.
The five-star lodge resort withdrew plans last year for 25 new lodges after more than 100 objections from the public.
Gwel an Mor has now lodged two new separate applications with Cornwall Council.
The first application is to build ten new lodges on land previously earmarked as a wild meadow.
The other is to increase the capacity of the one-bedroom lodges surrounding the site’s fishing lake.
And locals have expressed their concerns about the park’s population growing larger than the entire parish.
Nina Schofield said: “The big concern goes back to village worries about the site just getting bigger and bigger, dwarfing the village.
“Any positives the site has brought so far are beginning to be outweighed with too many negatives.”
Portreath Parish Council’s planning committee rejected the proposals on Monday.
Chairman Ian Stewart said: “We have had meetings in the parish with Cove UK managers who have said they want accommodation for between 1,700 and 1,900 people when they finish all the stages [of development].
“The last time I looked there were 1,900 people in the parish – Gwel an Mor could become as big as our whole parish.”
The objections lodged with the council included extra strain on the village, inaccuracies in supporting documents and concerns about water run-off and the sewage supply.
The Sun has contacted Gwel an Mor and Cornwall Council for comment.