Welsh Journals

Attitudes and Second Homes in Rural Wales, C.Bollom, Social Science Monographs No. 3, Board of Celtic Studies, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1978, ISBN 0 7083 0659 4, £ 2.50. Over the past five years there has been an increasing number of studies of second homes in various parts of Great Britain; the prime purpose has been to obtain some measure of the scale of second- home ownership and of the characteristics and origins of their occup- iers, and, in the view of the author of this volume, the examination of their social implications has been inadequate. His book attempts to remedy this deficiency for one part of this island. It is in fact, more accurately defined by the sub-title of the preface, since it is based on a sfudy of five settlements in North Wales (four of them in Gwynedd), that part of the Principality in which the Welsh language and tradition survive most strongly and therefore the one in which the greatest hostility to the mainly-English occupants of second homes might be expected. The aim of this study was to dis- cover whether and, if so, to what' degree such hostility was gener- ated; in particular to test the hypothesis that the greater the density of second homes, the greater the stress between local residents and incomers. It is essentially a reconnaissance study. Five settlements were selected to illustrate a range of conditions, though somewhat surpris- ingly in view of the importancé of coastal areas /four of them are located inland. Information was sought from a sample of occupiers of second homes by means of a postal questionnaire and interviews and from a sample of local residents by interviews alone. It is on these latter interviews that the book is largely based, since the sample of incomers interviewed was too small and statistically unsatisfactory to permit reliable conclusions to be drawn. The striking feature of the findings of the survey of residents was the unwillingness of the large majority of respondents to recog- nise any friction between the two groups. There was clearly no hostil- ity to the idea of second homes as such, since only 3 per cent objected to second homes in England and Wales; this proportion increased as the geographical reference frame was reduced, but nearly 40 per cent would have had no objection to a second home next door. The great majority did not recognise any groups that did not mix and the author concludes that a sense of conflict does not appear to be highly devel- oped. On the other hand, the language, particularly in association with church-going, was a barrier, and it is interesting to note that bet- ween one and two thirds of the residents (according to locality) had never been into a second home and a rather larger proportion had never contacted the occupier of a second home. Between a half and a quarter thought that second homes had an unfavourable effect, a gen- erally smaller proportion a favourable effect, and between a fifth and a half no effect. Clearly second homes were not *oiversally regarded as a bad thing.