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‘OUR NEW PLAGUE’
Our village was destroyed by the Great Plague & now it’s ruined by second home owners… we had to take desperate measures
IT'S been 350 years since the idyllic village of Eyam was blighted by the Great Plague, but now residents say they are facing another threat.
Locals from the area, near the Peak District in the Derbyshire Dales, say second homes and holiday lets are causing property prices to rocket and forcing them out of the area.
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During The Sun's visit, they told us that it was "ripping families apart", that local amenities were shutting and the transport was so bad that students were late for exams.
One angry resident has even caused stir by touring the area with a sign reading "Local homes for local people, say 'no' to holiday lets" in the back window of his son’s car.
The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, told us: “The landlord called the police, who came to see me.
"I said I’d take the sign down if he contributed to a local fund and he hasn’t done that yet so the sign stays.
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“Right now, [landlords] don’t contribute to our community life. We have a situation where we don’t even have enough people to make up a cricket team.
“When the holidaymakers turn up they get an ordered shop delivered from Tesco or Sainsbury’s, so they’re not even using local services.
“I’m not against business, I’m against businesses taking out and not putting back in.”
'Will become a shell'
The sign has become a contentious point in Eyam, which has a population of just 1,000.
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Many are concerned about the delicate balance between the area's need for tourism and becoming unaffordable for locals.
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They are only too familiar with rocketing house prices, which one family man branded “ridiculous” and “bonkers”.
The man, who didn't want to be named, bought his cottage in the Eighties for £125,000 and now it's worth six times the value at £750,000.
Cliff stabiliser Mark Noble, 67, is concerned that so few people can afford to live there and worries it will cripple the village.
“You can’t expect the locals to be paying £280,000 for a two-bed starter home, that’s not what you do," he told us.
“And then you get a situation where everybody is moving out and then we have nobody left to run hospitality or the shops or work in the building trade and it all goes, you’re left with a shell."
Mark says they have lost four pubs and that the butcher's shop, which was at the centre of the village, has remained empty since the owner passed away six years ago.
Eyam has just one pub, a community club, tea rooms, a veg shop and a post office, amongst a smattering of tourist locations such as craft shops and a museum commemorating the 260 people who died during the Great Plague.
The locals and tourists have very different needs, as long-term resident Doreen Payne, 82, explains.
She's lived in the village all her life and said there used to be 13 shops at one point, where you could buy anything from a ball of wool to a roll of lino, but not anymore.
“There used to be two shoe factories too, plenty of work," the grandmother says.
"I love living here but something needs to be done to make sure people can keep living here."
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'Ripping families apart'
Similar to the plague, which struck the area in 1665, properties for tourists aren't always easy to spot.
To the untrained eye, it's near impossible to tell the difference between local properties and holiday lets or second homes.
Jade Wilson, 19, who works as a waitress at Eyams Tea Rooms, says the changes to the area are splitting families up, as they can no longer afford to live near one another.
She says: “I have a friend who is on her own and has a baby. She just wanted to live near her mum and she can’t.
“It’s ripping families apart. My friend’s family have lived here for years and she has to move because there’s no way she can buy her own home, not here. It’s not right."
Jade's mother Rachel Roberts, 54, who works at Church Street Stores, fears her daughter will "have to move away" because of the lack of opportunities.
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"There isn’t much for her here when you can’t get a house and there aren’t many jobs," she told us.
“The problem with second homes and holiday lets is our new plague.
“I live in a federation house and even there I have a home behind me that stands empty because it’s used as a second home. That shouldn’t be allowed to happen.”
'Kids miss exams due to bad buses'
Transport has been deeply affected too, which locals claim puts kids' education at risk and makes it harder to employ staff.
“Don’t even get me started on the bus service... They are a total nightmare," Jade says.
“You have to travel out of Eyam to get to the high school and it’s difficult when the buses don’t turn up and you’ve got people not getting to their exams on time.
“My employer has just taken on a cook and had to make sure the right candidate could drive to make sure they could get in to work on time.
“There used to be a private bus service but there weren’t enough people using it and now everybody has to rely on public transport."
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Another bone of contention for the residents is the parking.
One woman, who did not wish to be named and claimed to be a direct descendant of a plague survivor, told us "inconsiderate" drivers were causing major issues in the area.
She says: “In this part of the village the road narrows and people might not realise but this is our main road.
"It is used for emergency vehicles, ambulances and fire engines, and buses and bin collection and quite often they can’t get through.
“The amount of times I have been woken at 7am by a bus beeping its horn because it can’t get through is countless.
“We get houses knocked into by cars and vans and people blocked into their homes with inconsiderate parking.”
Area 'dies' due to second homes
There are some who think the frostiness towards second and holiday homeowners is a little excessive.
Commercial real estate worker Rachel Morgan, 46, originally from Philadelphia, US, felt the recent sign demanding "local homes for local people" was heavy-handed.
She told us: “Imagine coming here and seeing this, making you feel you are not welcome.
"Tourism is a major part of life here, we don’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot, [but] there is no denying that everybody is worried about what the influx of second homes is doing to village life."
Steve Pudney, 71, who lives in nearby Grindleford but walks into the village each day to work at a tea room, considers the area "a wonderful place to live" but fears for its future.
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The semi-retired university professor tells us: “You’re getting where it’s going to end up like Cornwall or Wales where it’s filled with holiday homes and they outnumber the residents.
“The young people need somewhere to live too. You ideally want a community made up of young and old, not the young having to move out because they are priced out of the market.
“You do see empty houses where people turn up for the occasional weekends and that’s not right. It dies then.”
During The Sun's visit to Eyam, it was clear that residents are in dire need of more homes that are affordable for local people.
While there are two social housing areas at either end of the village, many other homes list for half-a-million and more.
'Enough is enough'
Peter O’Brien, Derbyshire Dales District councillor, who represents Eyam and other nearby villages, Grindleford, Abney and Hathersage, told us: “People are angry and frustrated because they can see their village slowly turning into a holiday village.
“It is frustrating, particularly for young people trying to find a home to bring up their family."
He believes it's a "national problem" and calls for local councils to be given more control in regulating numbers of second and holiday homes.
Mr O'Brien is skeptical of proposals including increasing council tax, which he fears will "push up rental prices" and believes "property prices will follow".
“Holiday homes are needed in a tourist destination but when you get a place with three-quarters filled with holiday homes then you’ve gone too far for it to be rescued. You need to step in now," he says.
“Tourism is an essential part of village life and it’s not to say you don’t want it, there needs to be a balance.
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“You need to step in before the village school numbers dwindle and it closes. If young families can’t bring up their children in their village then they move away.
“There needs to be a point where you say enough is enough.”
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