Set against the curve of the craggy cliffs that punctuate Cornwall’s northern coastline, Polzeath is a glorious sweep of sand that stretches in a golden arc down to the shore.
During the day it’s a surfer’s paradise. Families also love to descend on the Blue Flag beach with their buckets, spades and bodyboards, not leaving until the sun dips or hungry tummies demand.
But when night falls in early July, it’s a very different feel.
For there is a tradition that when private schools close (usually a good two to three weeks before state schools), hordes of well-heeled and very well-spoken teens descend on the exclusive holiday homes that pepper this particular stretch of coastline.
Polzeath transforms from wholesome seaside resort to a hedonistic party venue more typically associated with the 1990s debauchery of Faliraki – the Rhodes hotspot beloved of club 18-30 holidays – than the desirable coves and tranquil fishing villages of Cornwall.
Take photographs of scenes witnessed last week: a vast crowd of young people swarming across the sand, an evening of partying in full flow.
It all came to a rather unfortunate end, however, when the neighbourhood policing team was forced to issue a dispersal order, covering the beach and its surrounding area.
Such orders are more typically associated with major anti-social incidents such as protests and riots, so why on earth would police need to deploy one in sleepy Polzeath?
Groups of teenagers gather together on Polzeath beach in Cornwall after breaking up for their summer holidays
Police officers patrol Polzeath Beach – the village has also had its own beach ranger since 2019 to cope with the annual gathering of teenagers
It turns out there’s not just the noise – 300 odd teens partying through until 4am makes quite a din – but a litany of other anti-social behaviour: broken glass, litter, vandalism, young men urinating in public and more than one couple disappearing for liaisons that shouldn’t be public and quite possibly, given how young they look, aren’t legal.
When the Daily Mail visited this desirable little resort this week – former Prime Minister David Cameron and TV chef Gordon Ramsay both have homes nearby and Princes William and Harry learned to surf here – the huge crowds had shrunk.
Instead there was a gathering of 30 to 50 teens milling around in groups on the sand. Still, most looked quite clearly younger than 18 and several were clearly the worse for wear.
At around 11.30pm on Tuesday we witnessed a boy and girl – who might just have been 16 – coming out of the ladies’ toilet together. The not remotely abashed couple then hurried back to the sand.
Such behaviour is, sadly, not uncommon.
One frustrated local told the Daily Mail that he has seen children who looked as young as 13 getting paralytically drunk and having intercourse on the beach.
Only last week a teenage couple were caught having full sex on the sand, a mere 10 metres away from the rest of their friend group.
Meanwhile, a police officer reportedly caught two more in the middle of a sex act, ‘round the back of [a] food van’.
As one angry resident observed: ‘They’re all private school kids. This doesn’t happen at any other time of the year. They’re really obnoxious and behave outrageously.’
During our visit we’re directed to a couple who own six holiday lets in the village. Dominic and Zoe do not want to give their surnames, but their observations are revealing.
Only last week one of their properties (rented to apparently responsible adults) was trashed after the younger occupants of the house held a party which got out of hand. A raucous crowd of teens who were not staying in the house had descended at 1.30am.
When Dominic and Zoe visited the three-bedroom beachside property the following day, the parents of the party goers (repeat visitors to the property, who appear to have ignored the polite email reminding them to respect both the property and neighbours) admitted they hadn’t been home at the time. Had they deliberately rented a party house, while choosing to sleep somewhere else themselves? Nobody is sure.
Zoe says: ‘There were broken wine and beer glasses around the house. They had been throwing beer bottles onto the lane and beer poured all down the sides of the walls, inside and out. There were also loads of cigarette butts in the bins.’
The couple have operated holiday-only rental properties in the village since 2008 and, says Dominic, it’s early July when the tone of the resort changes.
‘The first two weeks of July when private schools break up, they all coordinate to come down together. Large groups of youngsters from the same schools gather on the beach and their parents don’t really know where they are. It doesn’t seem to matter.
‘The last three years it’s been building, the places have been left in a terrible state.
‘The first year it was so bad we had to second other people in to help clean. It took 12 to 13 hours just to clean a small house.
‘It’s only this fortnight. The minute the other families come down on holidays it’s very nice, everybody’s friendly and the houses don’t take such a beating.
‘Polzeath and Rock seems to have the most trouble in Cornwall so they should provide more police for these two weeks.
The neighbourhood policing team was recently forced to issue a dispersal order, covering the beach and its surrounding area
Average house prices in the area regularly hover around the £1million mark and locals often find themselves priced out of the market by second homeowners
‘I know the police used to write to the private schools asking them to warn children about their behaviour.’
Down on the beach an even more colourful picture is drawn by another local, a father who has watched ever more dramatic scenes unfold.
‘Police officers patrolling in the village last week were called “f****** pigs” by a group of boys. It can get quite threatening when there are 50 or so lads advancing. It feels like they just aren’t used to being told what to do.
‘The kids have mostly come down in friend groups. Their parents put down credit cards to rent them luxury holiday homes. I heard of one house that was rented out to teenagers for £8,000 a week last year and was trashed – the owners decided not to rent it out for these two weeks this year.’
Since 2019, the village has had its own beach ranger to cope with the annual teenage bacchanal, first funded by the council and now by a community interest company.
The issue of night-time partying grew during the pandemic – when everyone was encouraged to socialise outside – and has continued to expand.
In 2022, the beach rangers had to launch night patrols after partying got out of control and that year police had to impose a two-day 10pm curfew. There were broken prosecco bottles littering the sand; beach bonfires fuelled with benches, fences and shed doors stolen from local properties, then left to smoulder until morning; and emergency life-saving equipment vandalised.
A year later, villagers upped the ante; CCTV was installed to watch the beach, along with rechargeable floodlights, which illuminate this year’s antics.
The current ranger is Andy Stewart, a police officer for 30 years, who on Tuesday was joined by police.
At midnight, the Daily Mail witnessed them gently evict those gathered from the sand before any more alcohol was consumed.
Most left on foot, but as is typical of these gatherings there were a handful of cars – a smart Audi and several Land Rovers – driven by smartly dressed parents, pulling up to collect their offspring.
Six youngsters piled into the back of a black BMW SUV that was quite clearly not designed to safely hold that many passengers, before the middle-aged couple in the front drove off.
Meanwhile, a group of half a dozen boys, looking slightly the worse for wear, loudly sang the ‘10 German Bombers’ football chant in their crisp Home Counties accents as they weaved their way home.
Homes are a particularly thorny question around these parts.
Average house prices in the area regularly hover around the £1million mark and, as with many parts of the county, locals often find themselves priced out of the market by second homeowners.
In St Minver Highlands, the parish in which Polzeath sits, nearly 30 per cent of properties are second homes, while in neighbouring St Minver Lowlands (where the even more exclusive village of Rock sits) 36 per cent of properties are in the hands of second homeowners.
And if parents don’t want to put up with their noisy offspring on their early summer break, they can always pack them off to a nearby holiday let, preserving their own peace and quiet.
But at what cost?
A litany of incidents was described to us on our visit.
Police, we were told, have been taking alcohol away from under-age children, only for the youngsters to stash fresh supplies in the public toilets so they can retrieve it, a couple of cans at a time.
Police say last week’s 48-hour dispersal order was an ‘unusual step’ and that it was the ‘behaviour of a few’ that was detrimental to the wider community
Rubbish left on Polzeath beach. Cleaner Katherine Perkins, who lives in Polzeath, says: ‘The amount of rubbish gets really bad. We end up picking up after them. It’s really frustrating’
We were told of one 13-year-old boy who was discovered on the beach completely incapacitated by booze. When police called his parents, they too were under the influence, so couldn’t drive to collect him.
Another mother asked police to return the £30 bottle of wine they confiscated from her 15-year-old child.
Last year, a girl nearly drowned when she passed out on the shoreline alone. She had to be dragged to safety, with her rescuer using her thumb to unlock her phone so he could ring her parents.
Bar worker Anna Foster, 21, from nearby Wadebridge is young enough to know how much fun it is to let your hair down at the end of term, but says: ‘I feel like the behaviour has been getting worse for the last few years.
‘You see 18-year-old kids racing up and down the road in huge Range Rovers forcing everybody else out of their way.
‘When we open in the morning the first job we have to do is clear up all the smashed glass bottles on the terrace from the night before.
‘Locals can tell who they are from a mile off, what they’re wearing, how they speak. I overheard a conversation between father and son about whether he would go to Eton and whether it was still good enough. How mad is that?
‘We’ve seen lots of treating all their friends to meals and drinks on Daddy’s credit card, but you just get desensitised after a while.
‘We’ve had to confiscate quite a few fake IDs, and the parents will come down and ask for them back.
‘In previous years we would go out to Surfside [the village’s ever popular beach bar] after work but this year as soon as we close we get out of here.’
Only last week the owner of Surfside, Guy Taylor, revealed he spends more than £17,000 on extra security at his beach bar during the first two weeks of July.
It’s all a familiar story to another young woman, a shop assistant, who gives a wry smile when we ask about the July frenzy and says: ‘The way they behave is just so selfish.
‘The other day when we opened the whole street was just covered with shattered glass.
‘They have thrown barriers and debris off the cliff, but as soon as the police show up their parents all drive down and pick them up, so they don’t get into any trouble.’
Cleaner Katherine Perkins, who lives in Polzeath and has to tidy up homes when the occupants depart, adds: ‘The amount of rubbish gets really bad. We end up picking up after them. It’s really frustrating. They don’t have any respect for the local people.’
But for all those who despair when the rich kids arrive, it is incredibly lucrative.
One businessman told the Daily Mail that he estimates the first two weeks of July alone pump an estimated £1million into the local economy.
As for police, they say last week’s 48-hour dispersal order was an ‘unusual step’ and that it was the ‘behaviour of a few’ that was detrimental to the wider community.
Inspector Adam Stonehill told the Daily Mail: ‘We’re pleased to report that there’s been a significant reduction in antisocial behaviour in Polzeath as a result of our response, including the introduction of the dispersal order, foot patrols and engagement with young people.
‘We will continue to take a proactive approach across summer, with officers maintaining a visible presence in the town, engaging with visitors and residents, removing alcohol from any underage drinkers and responding robustly to incidents reported to us.
‘Polzeath remains a safe, vibrant and welcoming destination, and we look forward to welcoming visitors over the coming weeks and months.’
Nobody wants to be a killjoy, but the residents of Polzeath are also quite looking forward to the coming weeks, when ice creams and pasties replace drunken antics behind the local coffee van.
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