Two fifths of people couldn’t afford a summer holiday last year according to one study, with trips away proving out of reach for a large number of British young people
Brits are a people on the move.
Since the Covid lockdowns, appetites for getting away from it all have just grown more and more. Arguably we reached peak holiday last year, with the average Brit taking 3.94 annual trips, the most since Abta research began. And it’s not all jetting off to sunny seaside towns abroad. One survey found 63 per cent of UK respondents were plotting a staycation in 2023, with the overall spend on holidays hitting £64billion last year – a sharp six per cent rise in a year.
Yet beneath this growing mania for travel there is a section of British society who rarely, if ever, get to head away from their homes. Roughly one in five British households are in relative poverty, with a large proportion of those struggling with serious debts and very little expendable income a week. For them, even the most ‘budget’ breaks may seem out of reach. Two fifths of people couldn’t afford a summer holiday last year, according to one survey.
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The result is a generation of kids who haven’t just missed out on dreamy days spent basking in the Spanish sun or paddling about off a Greek beach, but who have never visited the British countryside.
“We are talking about kids that never get away from home, that never get out of the city. Kids who have never seen a sheep before,” James Blake, the CEO of the Youth Hostel Association (YHA), told the Mirror.
James and his team have been working to help those children who have never had the chance to explore the beautiful British countryside, to climb a hill or even visit the seaside – something a group of young carers in Blackpool had never done.
“These tough lads who come out of the inner city and go ‘oh my god what’s that’ when they see a sheep. It’s not people from London hasn’t been to the Lake District, it’s people from Workington haven’t been to the Lake District, it’s about kids and there parents having confidence getting away from home,” James added.
Sarah Randall and Katherine Pendlebury work at Bolton Lads and Girls Club and recently took a group young carers to a Generation Green-funded stay at YHA Ilam Hall in the Peal District. “It was stunning, a big beautiful stately home, beautifully converted,” Katherine recalled.
They took 20 young people from eight to 18 years old to the property, providing them with a respite from their caring responsibilities at home and giving them a chance to explore a breathtaking bit of countryside.
“Young carers parents may be poorly themselves, they’re not always able to. To get a break from that caring responsibility, to be a child,” Sarah explained. “A lot of the families we work with, they don’t have cars. They don’t have an awful lot of money. It is a lot of stress and pressures. It is these holidays we might take for granted, but they’re a luxury for some. They just don’t happen. It is an opportunity to go and have time in the great outdoors, to see the bigger world.”
Many of the children they work with live in Bolton, which is on the edge of the Peaks, but they never venture there and rarely get out of their homes. “They never get to see a hill, a sheep, or that much sky. To see an actual river, to go across stepping stones,” Katherine added.
“We’ve taken 10-year-olds to the beach who had never been to the sea before. Some saw a lake and thought it was the sea.”
The second phase of the Generation Green project is about to come to an end. It has used £4.5million of funding to connect more than 25,000 young people living in England’s most socially disadvantaged areas to nature and rural life by taking them on inspiring experiences in beautiful protected places.
By the end of the project in spring 2025, Generation Green 2 will have delivered more than 41,500 nights under the stars, residentials and nature connection experiences to young people. Participants would otherwise be the least likely demographic in the country to spend time in the nation’s most beautiful landscapes.
Part of the project’s purpose is to address the nature inequality that is baked into British society. The most affluent 20% of areas in the UK have five times the amount of green space than the most deprived 10%.
For James, this is essential work if the country’s ailing countryside is to be preserved and restored. “If we want the environment and nature to be looked after, we need to inspire the next generation,” he continued
“This round of programme ends in March. I would love to extend this programme again. I would love every child to have a night under the stars in a green space. Fewer still now are having that experience than before Covid. I would love it for this to be built into the curriculum.”
