1% of 67.1 million = 671,000 

A very small percentage of a very large number is a pretty large number in absolute terms. Last autumn while the pandemic and lockdown were still in force, someone expressed their opinion to me that lockdown should be lifted and the covid virus allowed to run its course naturally, because only 1% of the population died of the illness and lockdown was causing too many people to suffer from mental health problems. I was so taken aback by this statement that I couldn’t think of a really good reply until afterwards.

One percent means 1 person in every 100 people. The population of the UK in 2020 was estimated by the Office for National Statistics as 67.1 million people. 1% of 67.1 million is 671,000. If drought and famine were killing nearly 700,000 people in Africa, we would all, quite rightly, be fundraising for Oxfam.

0.1% of 67.1 million = 67,100  

Hopefully, with most people now vaccinated, the pandemic is on the way out, but it has left another problem which relates directly to that population of 67.1 million. Everybody wants to escape from their cells and go on holiday. They are being told that their mental health requires them to go on holiday, preferably somewhere where they can immerse themselves in “nature”. Women’s magazines, social media, travel agents, are all spreading the message. Since it is still quite difficult to go abroad, what with the price of covid testing, and the unpredictability about possible weeks in quarantine, many people are opting for a staycation within the UK. This is a perfectly reasonable wish. The trouble is, there are 67.1 million of us.

Wild camping is the current fashion. I have already posted a blog about the problems caused by so-called wild campers  in remote Scottish islands. Recently I read a very detailed blog post about the problems caused by wild campers in Caithness. It has led to so much misery for the locals that caravans have been pelted with eggs, and camping associations are discouraging their members from using that route.  I found a BBC article on similar problems in Pembrokeshire (Wales). I have found others describing the problems in Devon and Cornwall and Cumbria. Cornwall council has banned people from sleeping overnight in mobile homes and caravans in 17 council-run car parks.

All of these beautiful rural areas are reporting the same problem: the sheer numbers of people on the roads using facilities which cannot cope with them. They are used to tourists, they welcome tourists, but not in these numbers. Single-track roads with passing places and cattle grids which were never intended for campervans, let alone a steady stream of them; highway maintenance crews which have been cut over the years and now can’t keep up with the potholes caused by the volume of heavy vans; campers spending the night in passing places on single track roads or in village car parks;  barely-regulated ‘pop-up’ campsites; the inadequate number of countryside rangers; overflowing rubbish bins which are not big enough or emptied frequently enough.

It is constantly stated, and I am sure it is true, that only a small percentage of these holidaymakers behave that badly. That is the problem. A small percentage of a very large number is a pretty large number itself.  Shall we make a wild guess and say that less than 1%, maybe 0.1%, of the population of the UK are antisocial enough to drop their litter and go to the toilet in a car park? That means one person in every one thousand people. 0.1% of 67.1 million people is 67,100 people.

Worst of all is the lack of sufficient public toilets, which has resulted in public areas being fouled with excrement. Does no-one remember that during the 19^th century, before modern sanitary measures, there were constant epidemics of diseases related to poor disposal of human waste? We’ll be lucky if it’s just the norovirus that gets loose.

0.01% of 8.982 million = 8,982

It gets worse. Even if they don’t want to go on holiday, people want to escape from confinement and start socialising. They want to go out for meals. They want to go out for a drink with their mates. They are told that it is now safe and are encouraged to do so. As a result people in cities are now suffering many of the same problems as those in rural areas. I have recently read a post from the Guardian newspaper, describing the situation in Soho this summer. The government is so keen to support hospitality businesses trying to recover from the pandemic, that they are allowing streets to be pedestrianized and cafes to expand into them. These people are as closely packed together as sardines in a tin, and the noise is so bad that local residents have to keep their windows shut all the time. Furthermore they are treated to the sight of drunken customers urinating and defecating on their front doorsteps. And they have to clean up the excrement next morning themselves. It’s not that people haven’t done this before on a Friday night. It’s the sheer numbers of them who are doing it at the moment.

The population of London in 2019 was 8.982 million. Let us make another pure guess and say for the purposes of argument that only one in 10,000 Londoners would behave like this. 0.01% of 8.982 million, i.e. one in 10,000 people, makes 8,982 people. Nearly 9,000 people pooing and peeing in doorways is really no joke. The sight of streets or urban parks full of people packed together in these numbers, shoulder to shoulder, not because they all have to be at work at the same hour, but because they are desperate to get outside their homes again and socialise normally, is terrifying. There are just too many people in the UK now.

When I was a young woman working in Greece, there was a petrol shortage. The government decreed that cars could only be driven on alternate days of the week. I can’t remember if it was done by the registration number or the owner’s surname. If we are not careful, our government will have to organise a similar system for when UK citizens can go on holiday. Unless of course you are wealthy enough to export yourself abroad, where you can give the locals in some other country the pleasure of coping with you. I visited Rome in 2016 and couldn't get near the famous Trevi Fountain because there were so many of us trying to view the historic site at once.

I think this summer should be a wakeup call to make us think seriously about two problems. One is the overpopulation of the British Isles. The other is the fragility of an economy which relies so heavily on tourism and hospitality, a bubble just waiting to be burst.