Hope Cove

Everyone knows that property prices in Devon have shot up in recent years, but in Hope Cove this doesn't necessarily mean good news for everyone.

Looking out around the village outside the busy summer season, there's one thing that becomes clearly evident: there's hardly anyone around. At night time in the winter months, it's a surprise if you can see more than ten houses with their lights on.

This is because Hope Cove is full of properties which are used as summer holiday getaways by second homeowners, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The tranquillity of the village in the winter months is very peaceful, and many of the locals no doubt enjoy a break from the tourists in the busy summer season. It also provides an opportunity for the local community to bond in a way which they can't when the population sky rockets in August.

However, it is possible for an area to be too quiet. You shouldn't be surprised if you walk into the local Hope & Anchor pub one evening in November or January and find that you're the only one there. Similarly, it's very easy to take an autumn or spring stroll in the afternoon and not walk past, or sometimes even see, another living soul.

In winter it can be a struggle to find things to do in Hope Cove, other than wait for the days to get lighter and hope that a few people might appear and liven things up a little. As previously mentioned, many of the local residents enjoy the quiet times, but it could lead to problems in the future.

The current demographic state of the population in Hope Cove is partly rooted in property value. Many elderly local residents who have been living in the village for decades have seen the value of their assets rise astronomically in recent times, but as Hope Cove is a prime retirement spot, it is unlikely that many of these residents will want to cash in on their properties and move elsewhere.

There is a huge generation gap in the build up of Hope Cove's population. Young adults tend to move out of the area because of a lack of job opportunities, and they don't often come back until much later in their lives, if at all. This is partly because it is very difficult to get on the property ladder if you want to live in Hope Cove.

Fulfords is currently advertising a two bedroom house in Hope Cove for nearly £300,000. Depending on your source for figures, that could be as much as 17 times the average annual salary for someone working in the South Hams. At the end of last summer, The National Housing Federation (NHF) published a report suggesting that South Hams properties carried with them an average price to income ratio of nearly 16 - one of the worst in the whole country.

Unless you are earning well above the South Hams average (which in the current job market is a difficult feat to achieve), it is near impossible for those with young families to obtain a suitable mortgage and inject some life into Hope Cove. The school bus comes every weekday at about 8.15am to pick up the village youngsters who attend Kingsbridge Community College – there's rarely more than three children who catch it.

Many four or five bedroom family homes increasing in value by two or three times within the last decade. The Old Colonial House overlooking Harbour beach, for example, is now up for sale through Marchand Petit with an asking price of £1.5 million. It didn't seem so long ago, perhaps just before the year 2000, that this five bedroom property was on the market for less than £500,000.

A continued rise in property prices might be considered good news for those that have already bought houses in Hope Cove, but what about those that want to move in to the village permanently? Unless house prices stabilise, or there is intervention to provide more funding for council housing and an affordable homes strategy, the number of second homes in the village are likely to increase.

The permanent population would continue to get older and begin to shrink in numbers, and Hope Cove would struggle to attract new residents of working age to balance the number of elderly dependants. Hope Cove is in danger of losing it's heart in the future, and it would be a great shame for such a beautiful village to be appreciated by so few.