It looks like the monstrous love child of Le Corbusier and H.G. Wells.
We spent the school holidays, as we always do, leaning into the sideways rain of south Devon.
But what’s this? A gigantic machine – almost 250 metres long, weighing 52,600 metric tonnes and carrying nearly a thousand souls – glides slowly into view. It looks like the monstrous love child of Le Corbusier and H.G. Wells: a brutalist spaceship sent to crush the puny inhabitants of planet Earth. This is – or will be, if the Dart Harbour Authority gets its way – the next phase of tourism for the English Riviera.
Tourist economies always end up eating themselves. The very qualities that make a place attractive to holidaymakers – unspoiled beauty, peace, local interest and a strong sense of place – are eroded, inevitably, by holidaymakers. Once tourists reach a critical mass, there aren’t enough locals around to sustain the out-of-season economy: the decent grocer and the lamp-mending shop that make a town both liveable and interesting. The economy becomes ever more dependent on the tourist pound until, eventually, you can’t buy anything except fudge, wetsuits and naff nautical art.
But many cruise passengers are on all-inclusive deals, so they get their food, drink and entertainment on board. A friend who runs a restaurant in Dartmouth tells me the smaller cruise ships that sometimes moor in the harbour bring in very little business: “Maybe a dozen tables over the past few years.” He dreads the arrival of the giant spaceships. “Loads of tourists milling around, dropping litter, not spending, just clogging up Dartmouth.
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