The late 1970s and early 1980s were bad years for Newquay in Cornwall. “It
became the resort where the yobs of Great Britain met the blue-rinse
brigade,” says Ian Lillicrap, of the local estate agent Lillicrap Chilcott.
“Newquay was Hell-on-Sea, full to bursting with down-at-heel guesthouses.
You dared not go into the town centre at night because of the mayhem.”
There were good reasons why Newquay went downmarket at that time. Like every
other bucket-and-spade resort in the country, it could not compete with
foreign package deals. So Newquay made the best use of its biggest asset -
its surfing beaches - and focused on the youth market. Nightclubs sprang up,
the old-fashioned family bed-and-breakfasts became glorified dosshouses for
young surfers, and the middle-ranking hotels suffered through
under-investment, attracting mainly coach tours. Newquay fell well behind
its neighbouring towns in trendy north Cornwall. Today the average house
price in Newquay is still a third below that of Padstow.
But that picture of Newquay is about to change. Restormel Borough Council has
concluded that more money would be brought into the town's economy if the
old-fashioned hotels lining the main streets were knocked down to make
holiday apartments. “Today's more sophisticated visitors want good-quality
self-catering, not cheap B&Bs,” says Lillicrap.
The town centre is also getting a makeover. The architects Trewin Design
Partnership plan to build a shopping quarter with multistorey and
underground car parks on the site of the bus station at a cost of
£127million. A new sea wall and promenade at Towan Beach is also in the
pipeline. Just outside the town, Jamie Oliver has opened his new restaurant,
Fifteen Cornwall, at Watergate Bay, and a new television soap, Echo Beach,
is drawing attention to the area's beaches.
But the flagship for the regeneration of Newquay is to be found closer to the
centre of town: Fistral Beach. To the uninitiated, Fistral is just another
pretty bay in Newquay's collection; to the surfer this is heaven. Offering
the biggest and best waves, including the legendary 35ft Cribbar, Fistral is
where the major surfing competitions are held and where hardcore enthusiasts
have traditionally congregated. Since the 1970s, in property terms, that has
not necessarily been a good thing. Headland Road, overlooking Fistral, has
for years been “guesthouse alley” - a scruffy line of crash pads for
travelling surf dudes.
Now that is changing. A chic new hotel, The Carnmarth, has been built and
upmarket apartments are on the way. Prices give the lie to Newquay's cheap
and cheerful reputation: apartments in Acorn Property Group's most
reasonably priced block, Zinc, cost from £275,000; at Azure, prices start at
£350,000; and at Pearl, which also has two penthouses at £1.2million and
£1.3 million, you will pay at least £385,000.
Darren Honey, 39, a professional investor and landlord from Bristol, has
bought two of these apartments to let and has bought another for his own
young family. “I've been coming to Fistral for years and there's always been
a party scene,” he says. “The difference is that today's visitors are more
mature and affluent. Newquay has better investment potential than any other
coastal resort in the country.”
If you do not want to live near a surfing beach, you can pick up a three to
five-bedroom period terraced house on a non-seafront street for £250,000 to
£350,000. A two-bedroom terraced house a mile from the beach costs as little
as £165,000 and a three-bedroom 1980s semi about £200,000. Popular, quiet
locations are the Gannel estuary and Pentire Headland to the west of
Fistral, and Lusty Glaze to the east. Diane Nettleton, 42, has bought a
house overlooking Crantock Beach with the sole intention of knocking it down
to build another. “Location is all-important when you are buying here,” she
says. “This makes economic sense.”
Transport links are improving. Newquay airport, now owned by the council, is
expanding: there are flights to London City Airport as well as to Leeds,
Gatwick, Manchester and Bristol. Incomers should check the small print
before buying in Newquay, however. “Some properties have a clause stating
you have to own a main home elsewhere,” says Lillicrap. “You may only want
the house as a holiday home investment initially - but that clause, which is
quite common, may come back to haunt you if you want to retire here.”
However, walking through Newquay at night in summer, when hordes of young
people are spilling out of the pubs, clubs and fast-food eateries, is still
not for the faint-hearted. “We are taking a hard line on management of the
night-time economy,” says Phil Mason, the director of regeneration at
Newquay. “We are working with the police to issue dispersal orders to large
groups of people using the beaches at night. Barbecues are banned, we are
clamping down on under-age drinking, and we want to stop the ‘happy hours'
of cheap alcohol. We are determined to promote youth culture in Newquay -
but a different type of youth culture.”
FACT FILE
The average price of a home in Newquay is £235,837 compared with an average of
£296,719 in Truro and £313,921 in Padstow (Land Registry).
Property prices in Newquay have risen by 87.6 per cent over the past five
years. In 1997 the average price of a home in Newquay was £60,010.
Newquay airport handled 380,000 passengers in 2006. In 2001 it was 75,000. The
surf industry generates an estimated annual £21 million - much of it in
Newquay - for the Cornish economy.
Acorn Property Group: 020-7357 7555.
Lillicrap and Chilcott: 01872 273473.
Has anyone actually bothered to ask Newquay residents about all of this? Its just another example of slowly pricing the people who live permanently in Newquay out of the market as the house prices rise further out of their reach. The truth of the matter is that the council has ignored the local people again by helping promote the second home situation and not looking at addressing the problem of locals facing a shortage of affordable housing. What the article fails to mention is that the bays close to Padstow are like ghost towns in the Winter as all the second home owners prefer to go abroad. I for one, do not want to see the same thing happening to the beaches south of Newquay too. When is Restormel going to start looking after their own???
Eugenie, St Mawgan, Newquay, Cornwall
Well I've seen no sign of the locals wanting to vote out the council. Most see them as doing a fine job in attracting better quality visitors despite Newquay’s “cheap and cheerful†image in the UK. Once the yobs who surf (and I’m not saying every one who surf’s is a yob, I surf myself) , and other dossers who come to the town for a week of drunken mayhem are turfed out or realise they are not welcome, Newquay will once again become the jewel in Cornwall’s seaside crown.
Thompson, Newquay / London,
Newquay has long been the most underestimated holiday resort in Cornwall. With some of the most stunning, wild beaches and coastline in the world I am not surprised that the resort is finally catching up with rest of the County. Looking at some of the CGI images of potential developments in the town - Rocklands - Headland Road projects, I believe the town has potential to become the new sandbanks in the next 5 years. I've also just read that Rick Stein is in negotiations to take over the Fistral Blu cafe so change and significent confidence is clearly there..
Dave Mathews, London, england
Dream on.
Basing an article on the views of an Estate Agent? Why not visit the town and get the views of residents who have lived in the Town for sme years? Ask the majority what they think about the performance of Restormel Council.
Restormel planners must accept responsibility for the way the town has been developed in the past.
Trying to talk up the property market in Newquay in the present economic climate, 'dream on'..........
htm, Paris, France