As part of a special bbc series exploring the challenges and the opportunities facing britains coastal towns. Hello, i am simon mccoy, here in penzance as part of a special bbc series looking at the challenges and opportunities facing britains coastal towns. New analysis from bbc news has shown that two thirds of coastal parliamentary constituencies have seen a real terms fall in wages since 2010. That means the average worker here in a seaside town like this is earning £1600 a year less than someone working inland. John kay has been to meet three generations of one family here in penzance to see what that means in practice. Just a mile from the beach, the treneere estate, one of the poorest parts of britain. The coram family wanted to show us how they get by. We survive, day by day. Dad mike is a full time security guard, and earns £18,000 per year. He is paid on a friday, and it is soon gone. By monday morning, i will be already into my overdraft. Thursday i could be asking my boss if she can sub me from next weeks wages so i can put fuel in my tank to go to work. And that is every week, like, so then she will take that out of my wages, so next week ill be low again. Its a vicious circle. So we just start again, yeah. It is a familiar story here in penzance, a town literally at the end of the line. Analysis by the bbc has found that a typical worker in coastal areas like this earned just over £22,000 last year, whereas a typical worker inland earned more than £23,500. That is a difference of £1600. There are 12 grandchildren, and seven adults. Mikes wife amanda runs the household budget, and has to make food last. Its a matter of, you have to find the cheapest option to live. She is a trained chef, but cant find a job around here that pays anything like what she would earn inland. It is disgusting, i dont see how we should be paid so much less. I mean, youre going to get lower wages, it is a smaller place, but you cant afford to go out, where are you going to go . Well we do, mcdonalds. Mcdonalds get a cappucino. Mcdonalds is our weekly treat, get a cappuccino and go sit on the beach, because that is all we can afford. The government says it is investing millions to boost coastal communities like penzance, and level up the uk. But a lot of tourism jobs here are only seasonal, and other big employers like fishing, farming and mining have all been hit. The corams daughter lucy dreams of getting a place of her own. Energy would be £49 a month. Prices around here are high. And even though she works 50 hours a week on the minimum wage, she feels trapped. It is so, so ridiculous. People further up have this money, and are able to go and spend this money willy nilly, because it is easy for them because they and more money out there. We dont earn so much down here. Lucy now thinks she will have to move inland, splitting up a family who are cornwall born and bred. Why should i have to move from my home to get more money . I dont see why we should be treated differently to anybody else. That was john kay reporting on what is like for one family to live on low income. With me now, Nicole Broadhurst is the mayor of penzance, labour councillor, thank you forjoining us. The perception of course of many coastal towns is what holidaymakers see, the reality as we saw there can be very different. What are the main issues here . I think here it is the fact that incomes are so much lower, and to do anything is actually more expensive, because you have to go further to do anything, you have to buy things in bigger quantities to make sure you dont have to go out so often, and we have a problem with Seasonal Work here as well, which is one of the reasons the average income is so much lower. People work during the season and then it is much harder to actually get through the wintertime. Is there anything you can do about that . One of the things we are trying to do is make penzance a year round town, so for example when the pool is up and running that will be open in the winter, we are trying to have more events, we have the Business Improvement district which is doing lots of events through the winter, and we are advertising, because we do a lot in the winter, when you live here there is loads to do, but other people dont know about it. Looking at the pool behind you, it is not necessarily inviting. But part of that, one of the things you will do about that is a new geothermal project. Just explain how things like that have a knock on effect . If youre coming to stay ni penzance you might come in the summer or the seasons either side, but you dont want to get in the sea because it is freezing. So if we have something that warms part of the pool up to a temperature that is nice, it will be a beautiful thing to do, to sit in a warm pool on a cold day. People will come just to have that experience. When i checked in at the b b, the lady there said, please stop being so negative, a lot of people come to penzance and we focus on the negative. There are positives here. There are lots of positives, and everybody is working towards making the positives more well known. There was a problem, or the perception of a problem with antisocial behaviour a few summers ago, we had a meeting, you had everybody in from town to talk about it, and then we started to do some partnerships working with Cornwall Council and we have an antisocial behaviour officer, and his presence in town has made it less hectic than it was before, and we do think that if we are seen to be doing something about it, peoples perception does change. I saw him earlier. Also, i wonder if National Government gets the difficulties of seaside towns, successive governments have been criticised for a lack of help here. I think they dont get it, because people say, you live in such a beautiful place, whats the problem . There is a problem, we have the same problems as someone living in hackney, but because we are so far away from the centre of things it is much harder to make that clear and actually get the funding we need and deserve. The trouble with the seasonal nature of this, whatever projects you do, such as the one here at the lido, you cant escape the fact that months such as october, november, december, january can be pretty grim here. They can be, but there is so much you can do that doesnt involve being outdoors. We have beautiful shops, a museum, a gallery, so many things you can do, that we just have to be better at getting the message out there. This is a place to come all year round, and its beautiful any time of year. Finally there is an issue about housing people, young people here, they wont be able to buy anything here. Thats something we are working hard with Cornwall Council, they have allocation sites forfor housing, and we have to make sure that is actually affordable, not affordable, but something that you can actually afford. If your average income is £111,000, there is no way you can afford a house that costs £400,000. So we need to make sure they are actually affordable. Cornwall is well known for its beautiful beaches, dramatic cliffs and pretty fishing villages. But being right at the end of the uk can make living and working here a lonely experience, especially for younger people. Alex 0sborne has been meeting those who have been using social media to overcome rural isolation. Starting a newjob, moving to a new country, it is bleak, there is not a lot of people, not knowing anybody. It is all the ingredients really to feel quite isolated. Kelvin relocated to cornwall from the netherlands in 2018. His marriage ended and he was offered a job in penzance. I remember driving back from cambridge or london down to cornwall, and you would reach exeter, and it would be the last city lights you saw, and then all of a sudden there is just this blackness ahead of you on the a30 at night. And you still have 90 minutes. The geography of the place definitely adds to that feeling of being stuck out on the far edge of something. Many people view West Cornwall as a dream location to live in, but not knowing anyone was challenging for kelvin. Whenever you turn up to somewhere and you are new, youre sort of coming into other peoples lives that are established. Which is very different. They have their lives and you make friends, but youre not going to see them every day, so it is just a different kind of situation. Your room can become your prison, you can be in a flat and. You are just there and there is nobody about you. A university of exeter study revealed that levels of loneliness are higher in younger people with 40 feeling lonely, compared with only 27 of over 755. It is a particular problem in places like cornwall. Given its rural location, it really can be quite isolating, especially for young people. Professor Manuela Barreto is head of psychology at the university of exeter. Rural isolation will make it harderfor young people, or older people for that matter, access, the kind of activities that make it easier for social connections to flow, and to be sustained over time. So if its hard to access the right kind of transport that gets you into those places, it is going to be harder to sustain those social relationships. Im kay, i moved to cornwall in october 2016, i literally didnt know anyone at all when i first moved out. After working and travelling aboard for six years, kay decided it was time to settle down and save for a house. The idea of living by the sea drew her to cornwall. Going from being around people constantly to being around no one at all and just yourself, it was obviously quite lonely and horrible to come back to an empty house, and not even having anyone you could call up to go for a drink or anything like that. Obviously a lot of people know each other from school, so i wasnt sure how i would go about making friends. Enter social media, and a solution to kay and kelvins isolation. All of these people met online sort of like internet dating but for new friends. You are instantly channelled towards people who have the same experience as yourselves. It just fast tracks i think a process that might take many years. My life turned around in many respects. It has had a major impact on my life, pretty much the majority of my friends have been through these social media platforms. Definitely the future is bright, yeah, so thanks to social media i have got a partner now, ive got a big group of friends, and yeah, we do lots of activities together. So it is good fun. And very recently kay got engaged, to a partner she met online. We often worry about the use of social media, but here is an example of it working really well. As a young person living here in cornwall you will never find yourself feeling home alone. For kay, kelvin and many others, finding friends online has turned their lives around. As you drive into penzance you will see signs welcome you into a plastic free town. It is the First Community in the uk, in fact the world, to gain that status from the Marine Conservation charity surfers against sewage. Sarah ransome have been to the charity to see how the campaign is getting on. Woman Climate Change is not a lie all do not let our planet die grassroots protests for global awareness. This is a town that works hard to keep its eco friendly credentials and is happy to shout about it. We will not stop until action is taken. Applause. We are surrounded by the environment and nature, i think it would be horrible to see that go. Something you are so close to, to be taken away from you, would be really upsetting. Its notjust the shoreline that is being polluted by plastics. Local fishermen have been catching it for years too. Now 160 vessels around the south west have signed up to help tackle the problem. The mission for penzance to go plastic free began around two years ago. Residents have worked with local businesses and the Wider Community to try and crackdown on Single Use Plastics that sometimes washed up on beaches like this one and blight them. The ultimate aim is to make the town more environmentally friendly and for it to have a more sustainable future. Now hundreds of other communities around the uk are following its lead. So weve got the compostable cutlery that we use. This one stop Health Food Shop and cafe was quick to do its bit to get rid of single use plastic. As a town we felt we could make a big difference. It has not happened overnight, and customers have had to get used to paying a bit more for a substitute. There is nothing but positivity for penzance, people are really believing in the town now. And the more people see these things happening the better it will be. And this enthusiasm for all things environmental seems to be catching. Campaigners in penzance are hopeful the number of towns looking at what they can do in their own backyard continues to grow. Being able to see that in other plastic free communities around the uk, how they are all linking up with environmental organisations where they live, and making bigger things happen, and that is engaging the Community Even more in raising even more awareness. Chanting Climate Justice so with the town flying the plastic free flag, the hope is that small steps can help make big changes. Sarah ransome, bbc news, penzance. And a bit of a change of gear, just have a look behind me look thats battery buoys and belles who have decided this is a good idea to go swimming in the lido here. Rather them than me, thats for sure. Lets talk to susan stuart, director of the jubilee pool here and we were talking about the regional the seasonal nature of business here. Now, what can you do to try and get more people here for longer . 0k, well, thats part of our biggest plan. Jubilee pool came into Community Ownership last year. Weve now got 1,400 shareholders who all put money into a big redevelopment project which weve got going. All weve got lots of New Buildings on the top terrace behind you, so a new cafe, a Community Space and two treatment rooms. So that was not going to be open all winter with some selected winter pool opening this autumn. So, for the brave in penzance, they are going to come and do inflatable wipeouts, were gonna have a santa in the pool, so weve got lots going on across the year. At the big game changer will be our geothermal project. Now, that is going ahead, is it . Because that is a small pool just over there, but the important thing about that is, if thats up and running throughout the year, it means people are working through the year, just talk me through the plans for that . I will be slated, im calling it a game changer, which it really is because penzance is a really seasonal economy. We have lots of really high proportions of people with part time work, they have five or six part time jobs in the summer, almost nothing in the winter. This project will mean were be creatin Something Like eight new full time jobs across the year, which isnt many in number, but it is quite a significant change. Now well go geothermal and nod our heads. How does it work . We got hot rocks here in penzance. So 500 metres down the ground is quite hot. So a well has been drilled which will bring water over 30 degrees and we pump that into our new geothermal pool, which will be open all year round, so in the winter you can in 35 degrees water, youll have steam rising around your head. You can be one of our first guests, if you like. Simon laughs. It will be great beacuse some of it will bring in higher Value Tourism business. We can help to extend the Winter Tourism or the off the shoulder seasons as we call it here, so start to bring Winter Tourism into penzance and support retail, hotels, well, thank you very much, susan. Thank you. A brief lull in the weather it doesnt matter in there, though, theyre wet anyway. But how warm is it there at the moment . 16 . How warm is it . Oh, its cold. 16 degrees. Mad. Lovely. Theyre all. Laughs. Thats your view. Its notjust the lido here in penzance which is the subject of major renovations. The same could be said for the local language. Cornish has been written off as dead or dying, but thats been changed by local musicians. Singer songwriters have discovered the ancient language and giving it a new lease of life. Sarah gosling has gone to meet some of them. This is gwennos tir ha mor. I am sarah gosling, and i present bbc music introducing in devon and cornwall, where we showcase the very best local music. And since ive been doing the show, ive noticed a really, really happy and kind of unexpected increase in the amount of artists singing in cornish. Sings in cornish. Think of cornish, and you might think of bards and druids, folk music and old blokes with beards. And sure there are a few beards dotted around but in terms of the music, its about as contemporary and cool as it gets. Meet hunter here playing today at the at the looe live music festival. I think without that language, that sort of an anchor to our history, to our past, to our future. So its a celtic language was developed from breton in the iron age and was spoken widely all the way up until the 19th century. But, if it wasnt for recent events to try and revive it, it would have died out completely. So weve got about 300 fluent speakers, 1000 2000 speakers of some competency. The music scene in cornwall is actually quite buoyant. Theres quite a diversity of groups coming through and thats fantastic to see, generally. Some of the ones using cornish, some of them will sing entire songs in cornish, others just play with words and use it a little bit. It all helps. Sings in cornish. This is gwenno. Shes half welsh, half cornish, with english being her third language. And last year she released a critically acclaimed album called le kov entirely in cornish. Theres something about it, for me, the cornish language. About its survival, i mean, its fascinating because its been up against the wall, really, and its still here. dydh da is. . good day. Its notjust music, though, all across the county, people are taking time out of the evenings to learn the language. Were not appreciated, were on the end of england. Um, and it is a way of identifying us. And, i think it gives us a lift. Yeah thank you very much. So, while cornish may not be completely safe as a language, yet, with the efforts of of bands like these, the futures looking a lot brighter. Would you consider learning cornish . Yeah, i would like to know a few words, as we live here. It would be good. Yeah, it would be nice to learn a little bit, yeah. Its good to see bands singing in cornish and keeping it alive. We ended that report with him and were going to start my interview with him its mark trevethan, whos from the Cornwall Council. We did that on a much warmer day, i suspect, but why is it important to hang onto languages like this . Well, for cornwall its a real key part of our culture and our heritage and from that flows all sorts of other things like the music, other customs here like cornish wrestling, dancing and all sorts of other things. So by keeping the language alive youre keeping the structure of all sorts of other things, it gives and the distinctiveness here. And we just featured singer songwriters who are trying to do their bit. But unless you get youngsters to get interested, it becomes a dying language. Yes. So, in every aspect of using the language really is quite difficult, so youre trying to do classes in schools, you need schoolbooks, you need resources, you need films. Its a massive task,at the same time, its a Real Community effort, it always has been with cornish. So actually its kind of an inspiring thing and a really creative thing. You think how are we going to do this, how we going to do it together . in penzance we are working with ten schools here, we have keen teachers onboard and we have Community Groups that are really responding to the challenge. Do you ever walk into shops and try to speak cornish if anybody understands . I have done that in london. Really . But there are some shopkeepers here that understand a little bit of cornish, but not completely randomly. The probability is quite low, really. Im just wondering, a lot of the focus on cornwall, when we see things like poldark on the television, does that help . All aspects of the coverage help. I work in the Economic Development team of the council, part of it is branding and marketing cornwall for the culture. Its all exposure for our customers and our heritage here. There is a cost implication, though, isnt there . If you want to bring in the language to the fore, you want your signs in it, will there ever be a moment where the cornish is able to do that . Its quite interesting with the internet, with the way Digital Media works. Its actually quite affordable now to do things in cornish, its just the upfront cost of setting things up. Websites, all sorts of things, films you could do the voice overs all quite cheaply now in things we could never have done 10 20 years ago with cornish. Is easy to learn . No, but you can have a go. 0h, go on. Teach me some. So, i want to swim is. Speaks cornish. Simon copies him. Yeah. Speaks cornish. What does that mean . That means good luck. laughs. I dont want to. No, nor do i. But thank you very much. 0k. Great to talk to you. Thanks. Im never swimming ever again. Its 16 degrees. You know what the weather like is like in the winter in the seaside . Its wetter out here than it is in there. And you may have wondered where those swimmers earlier have gone, they are all over here. Hello and ijust wonder, what possesses you to want to go swimming in this sort of weather . Well, i think its just that feelgood factor. You are the battery belles . Part of the battery belles. So the majority of us come down every day and swim. But its the social side, so. Its not necessarily looking fine right now . We are enjoying it. We didnt plan the rain but everybody comes, no matter what the weather is. In the snow, in the winter, some of us were here. Who did i see dancing . What possesses you . I totally mad, i think. I know i can see. Its a good place to be. This is an upside of living in a coastal town like this. It is fabulous and its important things like this keep going. We are very lucky to have this pool to swim in throughout the winter. And also we swim in the sea every day. Itsjust a good, like you said, its a feelgood factor. Its good for your mental health. And you get on . Yeah and it keeps you fit . Yes, it does. And you wouldnt mind me saying, you are all barking mad as well . Im not going to stop you. Come on, go on. Off you go. Ladies. Come on. No, you cant hide there in you go. Anyway, that is the scene here. It stopped raining, thats good. Come on. They werent really expecting to have to do that but there you go. Thats it from penzance, a fascinating look at the problems and solutions facing britains coastal towns. From me, simon mccoy, goodbye. With with High Pressure close by there is a lot of dry weather around over the next few days. Starting with a frost in parts of scotland especially into aberdeenshire and a lot of cloud down towards east anglia in south east england and here we have outbreaks of rain, especially the further east you are to couple of showers elsewhere in england and wales most places will be staying dry, will be staying dry, more on the way of sunshine coming through during the afternoon although there will be range when the day bearing down on shetland. England and wales will see the lower temperatures here under some clear spell and with light winds staying quite breezy in scotland there will also be some fog patches developing, dense across parts of england and wales, especially towards the midlands and southern england slowly clearing on Tuesday Morning to sunny spells and a dry day. Scotland and Northern Ireland have a bit of cloud around, some rain in the far north of scotland. This is bbc news. Welcome if youre watching here in the uk or around the globe. Im james reynolds. 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