By Lee Trewhela of the Local Democracy Reporting Service
Earlier this month the Daily Mail published a damning report about Cornwall’s largest town, dubbing it ‘St Awful’ and stating that signs of drug abuse are “everywhere”.
It came after a YouTuber called JoeFish said he was offered drugs within minutes of arriving in St Austell, where, according to the national newspaper, he found “dozens of drug addicts passed out in the town centre in the middle of the day”.
The article goes on to paint a picture of a town with no hope, which people are intimidated to visit. It certainly wasn’t the case when I spent a few hours in St Austell last week. It’s true that St Austell is one of the most deprived areas in Cornwall and that its high street has seen better days (emblematic of a national malaise, sadly), but is it really as bad as has been made out lately?
A lot of business owners don’t think so and are actually doing very well, with many of them at the cusp of innovative ideas to help rejuvenate the town centre. Politicians of all stripes are doing all they can to improve things too, while shining a light on St Austell folk who are working for the good of the community.
Jake Richards is a case in point of a new breed of business owner going above and beyond to make the town he loves a little bit more St Awesome. He runs Jake’s Bakes which takes pride of place in the historic Market House.
Starting off baking from his home in Foxhole, Jake then ran successful pop-ups, which led to him being offered a permanent space in the Market House, a creative hub which is full of quirky and interesting businesses, including comics and science fiction bookshop Into The Realm, a hobby store, music lessons, and arts and crafts.
“What really strikes me is how people are super negative about St Austell,” he told me. “It’s a weird, ironic negativity that the people of St Austell get is tongue-in-cheek, but they don’t understand to the wider world, people think ‘I don’t want to go there’.
“When you look at Facebook groups across Cornwall, you’ve got ‘Everything Padstow’, ‘We Love Mevagissey’, ‘Visit Wadebridge’, ‘Truro, A Community’ and then you look at St Austell and it’s ‘St Austell, It’s A Dump, But It’s Our Dump’. People don’t realise that if you’re coming down to Cornwall and you type ‘St Austell’ into Facebook, that’s the biggest group – it’s got 20,000 people in it. Unfortunately, there’s a little bit of people being self-deprecating in this town.”
He added: “St Austell suffers an awful lot for lots of reasons. One being that it’s not on a beach. It has beaches near it and they’re some of the best in the whole of Cornwall, as well as amazing places nearby like the Eden Project and Mevagissey, but the town itself is not on a beach. Like a lot of places in Cornwall, it’s an area where for six months of the year people earn a lot of money, but for the other six months there’s no money.”
Jake is one of those people who is doing his best to ensure that St Austell loses its ‘dump’ tag. He has started the Cornwall Dining Club, where different chefs and food businesses take over his café space for a special night of food. The first event took place on Saturday (June 14) and was a sold-out success.
With his wife, he has also set up a children’s area in the café, so people can enjoy some damn fine cakes and coffee while their kids play nearby, without the need for paying for soft play. The café also organises a weekly board games night every Monday, mother and baby music groups, and a weekly craft market every Wednesday, which has become a great success and is growing. Jake’s Bakes also took part in the St Austell Festival of Children’s Literature on Saturday (June 14).
Next door to the Market House is another successful business, Trinity Café, which is leased from neighbouring Holy Trinity Church. A former pub, the business celebrates the town’s heritage, with a huge photo adorning a wall of Blackpool China Clay Pit, which closed in 2007. Its pink clay walls are also a nod to the area’s industrial history.
Stuart Millard, who runs the business, is another example of a growing ‘can-do’ attitude in the town. He said: “It’s not a case of what St Austell can do for us, it’s what we can do for St Austell.”
The team is excited at the prospect of work which is currently being carried out to create a pedestrian piazza-style area outside the church, which should allow for outdoor café seating.
“We haven’t got a homeless problem here – that’s a lot of rubbish. I’ve always felt safe walking through the town,” added Stuart. “This end of St Austell is fantastic. When the sun is coming down over the church, with the palm trees, you could be anywhere in Europe.”
He was quick to sing the praises of the “amazing” White River Cinema and, like many people I spoke to, is very hopeful that a new lounge bar and restaurant which is due to open soon, next to the cinema, will create a night-time economy spark in the town.
Work is currently finishing on establishing a new Cornwall Council hub within the White River Place shopping area, which, as well as being a multi-service centre for residents in and around the town, will also bring a lot more people – staff and visitors – into the centre of St Austell.
Just off White River Place, in Old Vicarage Place, is Sacred Heart Tattoo and Piercing, which was crazily busy when I visited. Elliott ‘Elmo’ Moret and his partner Bronwen Edwards, who run the business which opened earlier this year, say they chose St Austell over Newquay to set up shop and they haven’t looked back. Elliott told me: “Everyone is really friendly here.”
He was not the first to tell me that all the traders look out for each other in St Austell. Sophie Bullen found that too when she opened her Bayou hair salon in Biddicks Court two years ago when she was just 20. She has been fully booked since and is about to take on extra staff. “The community has supported me from the beginning – people have been amazing,” she said.
Based near her is the Sew and Fabric shop, a colourful explosion of all things sewing, knitting and clothes design. It’s a labour of love for Rachael Hunt and her husband Ian, who gave up lorry driving to become a sewing machine engineer and went from “wheels to reels”.
Originally from Essex, they have been in St Austell for 11 years. “Business is brilliant, absolutely brilliant. We have groups and workshops in here. Sometimes I’m here in the evening and on Sundays teaching – it’s not a job, I love it,” said Rachael, who gets fed up with the ‘St Awful’ curse.
“It’s horrible. That’s not the St Austell I know at all. We can get everything we need from the town. It will be nice to have a few more shops, but it will come because the council are coming in, which is a really good thing.”
Local politicians are working on improving the town’s fortunes too. Labour MP for St Austell Noah Law told us: “In moving my office into the high street, I’m putting my office budget where my mouth is and have real skin-in-the-game in delivering a revitalised town centre. St Austell has a proud history – home to a china clay industry which once saw two million tonnes mined every year by nearly 10,000 workers.
“As chair of the Critical Minerals All-Party Parliamentary Group, I am now doing everything I can to explore ways in which we might build on that strength, supporting efforts to explore lithium mining as an emerging industry and ensuring the spoils are shared with the community to give the town a much-needed second wind.”
He added: “These are challenging times for high streets across the UK as people move towards online shopping. While I am doing what I can in terms of calling for lower business rates and recognising pubs as assets of community value, we need to support local traders, many of whom are actually expanding due to demand.
“I will always be transparent about the extent of my influence. I can’t transform St Austell alone. I have called in Parliament for additional funding, but the White River Place experiment shows that not all investment is created equal and that money alone – if thrown into assets not fit for the context – cannot solve the problem.
“For too long, residents have had refurbishments done ‘to’ them, not with or for them, which is why we see polarising projects such as The Earth Goddess carried out with seemingly no meaningful consultation. That is why I am working with multiple stakeholder groups and the community to instil a more collaborative and inclusive approach.
“I’ve sat as a member of the town council’s revitalisation committee which, together with St Austell Town Council, Holy Trinity Church, the British Legion and Cornwall Council, is helping deliver our new piazza at the top of Fore Street which will breathe life into the top end of town.”
Mr Law spoke of the “elephant in the room” – antisocial behaviour. “I have asked Cornwall Council to explore a more data-led way forward, based on accurate information about sheltered accommodation provision, the impact of drugs and alcohol services commissioned, and the concentration and flows of vulnerable people around the town centre. I have asked Cornwall Council to present this approach when I launch my Pledge for St Austell late this summer. I am hopeful that with a more scientific approach, we can begin to respond in a way which is more sympathetic to the town centre.”
St Austell boy and Conservative Cornwall councillor for Mevagissey & St Austell Bay James Mustoe says ‘St Awful to St Awesome’ is achievable. He cites the St Austell Tidy Up Team as an example of how the community has come together for the good of the town. Originally set up by Cllr Mustoe and former councillor Richard Williams-Pears, it has evolved into a proper community effort with the addition of Pat Smith aka Action Nan in 2004. “It often sees over a dozen or more people come out fortnightly for big organised litter picks to tidy up around St Austell and the surrounding area,” he said.
Cllr Mustoe also highlighted the multi-million pound investment in Cornwall College Group’s St Austell Campus at John Keay House. “This is a site that as well as the announcement of this investment last year got an outstanding Ofsted report in January and is absolutely smashing it every day, particularly with some of the more traditionally hard to reach young people from more deprived areas.”
He also welcomed the planned return of A levels to St Austell, “which will mean our young people will get a chance to study in their town, rather than have to trek across the Duchy to get these qualifications, which is expensive for us parents”.
Moving on to health investment for St Austell, Cllr Mustoe mentioned the recently opened Elective Surgical Hub, across the road from where he lives. He told me: “I am still frankly astounded it was planned, built and opened within the timescales I was originally given. This is something I was told about in November 2023, helped get planning permission for quickly through the council and then opened in October 2024. When you compare that to the delays we have seen elsewhere, the site must be the envy of Cornwall.”
Jack Yelland, the newly elected Reform UK councillor for St Austell Central & Gover, noted that homelessness had improved in the town, adding: “While the town has faced its share of challenges, there’s a great deal of work being done by local organisations, businesses and residents to improve the area and support the community.
“St Austell BID has introduced security patrols in the town centre, which have helped reduce antisocial behaviour, and they’ve also worked to enhance the visual appeal of the area through new planting schemes, signage and banners. Regarding regeneration, there are now plans in motion to address the long-neglected General Wolfe building. Whilst final decisions are still pending, there is now a clear timeline in place for action, which marks a significant shift after years of stagnation.”
You can sign up for Noah Law’s Pledge for St Austell – which includes plans for a community land trust to develop the right kind of homes in the town – HERE.
#KeepItCHAOS
