Devon and Cornwall will be inundated with refugees? Ifs, maybes, and conjecture

[Midnitemo]

I'm certain there will be refugee's and transients its only the numbers and the geographical spread thats in question......ten's of thousands of people study and work away from home , the majority of them are going to be on the move in homeward direction(what i would call transients)then there will be some Refugee's running away from violence , pestilence , hunger or any of these in combination.

[bigpaul]

if there are any "refugee's" they will be small in number, most British people don't have the mental capacity for it, and most wont get very far.

[Grumpy Grandpa]

(21 March 2014, 15:46)bigpaul Wrote: then your the only one who does!

No he's not...

[bigpaul]

oh hell, here we go again.

[Grumpy Grandpa]

Paul, you said in a thread not all that long ago, that everyone was entitled to an opinion and that this forum was a place where we could discuss those opinions.

Does that only apply if they agree with you?

[bigpaul]

no, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, that also includes me. I have been taking advice from others off site on this subject and lets just say I'm not the only one with this opinion. I guess it'll depend very much on where these so called "refugee's" are coming from and going to, anyone not having a specific place to relocate to and aimlessly wandering around isn't going to last long, they'll either die of starvation, disease, due to accidental injury, or just get "taken out" by others more desperate than themselves. its not going to be " a walk in the park", its going to be cold, brutal and bloody and anyone who thinks otherwise its just deceiving themselves.

---

I expect the suicide rate to increase substantially.

[Scythe13]

SS, you're spot on mate! There are some crazy people down Dartmoor! Speaking of Dartmoor, if you're in the area mate, next weekend....guess where we'll be?!?!.....Oh wait, are we the crazy???....HEY!!! WAIT A MINU....oh...no...Actually, that's pretty accurate really SS.

[Straight Shooter]

Bloody hell S ......I knew you would get it ......at least!

[NorthernRaider]

The South West (West Country), it has 2.2 million people already living there but not enough water or sewage capacity in peak times even now, It does not even generate enough power for its own needs, much of its available fresh water is pumped not gravity fed, it’s a small peninsular with only two primary road routes in and out and three rail lines falling to one just after Exeter, but has millions of small roads, lanes and paths that are almost impossible to secure crisscrossing the region.
It’s heavily covered with lots of still serviceable former WW2 airbases. Multiple news articles and reports from organisations such as Tourism agencies and Motoring Associations already reports that there is a large shortfall in the number of petrol stations in the region and I believe it has no local fuel refining capabilities.
Huge parts of it are very vulnerable to flooding and storm damage, it has little or no coal or natural gas deposits of note. Its only 90 minutes from London and Birmingham by road or rail, and only 12 hours by small boat, making it a highly desirable location for refugees to decamp to in a crisis. Its wet climate is good in general for agriculture but only so long as the precipitation and its effects can be controlled, once the power goes off huge swathes will return to swampland. A massive influx of refugees from the Home Counties or the Midlands heading south west would have no other option but to remain there as it is a peninsular and there would be no onward destinations unwanted refugees could be encouraged to move to. It is and will be the most tempting and convenient destination of choice for immense numbers of dispossessed people fleeing Britain’s biggest two urban conurbations in a crisis.
One point to be given serious consideration would be that if any sort of state apparatus still exists in the UK there is a fair chance much of it will be in the area of Bath Somerset where you have facilities such as GCHQ, and the massive MOD and government super bunker in Corsham, Some consideration must be given to the fact that if any of the government survives it would do so there and be well protected and armed, We must consider that there is a case that refugees heading west from London along the M4 corridor and refugees heading south down the M6 corridor are likely to be deflected and redirected south west through Dorset and North Somerset into the West Country.
London itself has 8.174 million people according to Wiki that is only those legally documented some sources estimated over 500,000 more live in the area illegally or unrecorded. The Birmingham conurbation has a further 2.440 million people, then all the other medium cities and towns from places like Reading to Bath, to Bristol, Gloster , Coventry etc can add their populations to the calculation. It is not unfair to suggest upwards of 15 million people could be brought up for consideration into a displaced persons scenario. If you hack away savagely at those numbers possibly heading for the sanctuary of the South West , large numbers of stay at homes (history has shown us there are always plenty of people who choose to make a stand on familiar territory, but equally it has also shown us that many of those stay at home will flee later on if epidemics break out, this often leads to infected late arrivals in refugee areas bringing chaos with them. Then people who divert to Wales (from Brum) or Kent area (Londoners), people whose resources are depleted before they reach the south west, people who are turned back, people who die, people who find sanctuary before reaching the west country etc it could be a fair assumption that you will still find the population of the West Country doubling from 2.2 million to nearly 5 million within only a few weeks of a disaster with thousands more trickling in in the following weeks and months.
Once the initial wave of motorised refugees have been accounted for you will find plenty more arriving by bicycle, foot, horse, canoe, canal boat, coastal boats, helicopter, small aircraft etc for weeks and weeks after the initial waves of refugees.
But hey those already who have relocated to the area have already worked out the risks and scenarios, logistics and resources to the nth degree I mean apart from folks like BP born and raised in the area surely no intelligent well researched prepper would move to another area without carrying out a full and comprehensive risk analysis WOULD THEY ?.

[Devonian]

(23 March 2014, 12:57)NorthernRaider Wrote: The South West (West Country), it has 2.2 million people already living there but not enough water or sewage capacity in peak times even now, It does not even generate enough power for its own needs, much of its available fresh water is pumped not gravity fed, it’s a small peninsular with only two primary road routes in and out and three rail lines falling to one just after Exeter, but has millions of small roads, lanes and paths that are almost impossible to secure crisscrossing the region.
It’s heavily covered with lots of still serviceable former WW2 airbases. Multiple news articles and reports from organisations such as Tourism agencies and Motoring Associations already reports that there is a large shortfall in the number of petrol stations in the region and I believe it has no local fuel refining capabilities.
Huge parts of it are very vulnerable to flooding and storm damage, it has little or no coal or natural gas deposits of note. Its only 90 minutes from London and Birmingham by road or rail, and only 12 hours by small boat, making it a highly desirable location for refugees to decamp to in a crisis. Its wet climate is good in general for agriculture but only so long as the precipitation and its effects can be controlled, once the power goes off huge swathes will return to swampland. A massive influx of refugees from the Home Counties or the Midlands heading south west would have no other option but to remain there as it is a peninsular and there would be no onward destinations unwanted refugees could be encouraged to move to. It is and will be the most tempting and convenient destination of choice for immense numbers of dispossessed people fleeing Britain’s biggest two urban conurbations in a crisis.
One point to be given serious consideration would be that if any sort of state apparatus still exists in the UK there is a fair chance much of it will be in the area of Bath Somerset where you have facilities such as GCHQ, and the massive MOD and government super bunker in Corsham, Some consideration must be given to the fact that if any of the government survives it would do so there and be well protected and armed, We must consider that there is a case that refugees heading west from London along the M4 corridor and refugees heading south down the M6 corridor are likely to be deflected and redirected south west through Dorset and North Somerset into the West Country.
London itself has 8.174 million people according to Wiki that is only those legally documented some sources estimated over 500,000 more live in the area illegally or unrecorded. The Birmingham conurbation has a further 2.440 million people, then all the other medium cities and towns from places like Reading to Bath, to Bristol, Gloster , Coventry etc can add their populations to the calculation. It is not unfair to suggest upwards of 15 million people could be brought up for consideration into a displaced persons scenario. If you hack away savagely at those numbers possibly heading for the sanctuary of the South West , large numbers of stay at homes (history has shown us there are always plenty of people who choose to make a stand on familiar territory, but equally it has also shown us that many of those stay at home will flee later on if epidemics break out, this often leads to infected late arrivals in refugee areas bringing chaos with them. Then people who divert to Wales (from Brum) or Kent area (Londoners), people whose resources are depleted before they reach the south west, people who are turned back, people who die, people who find sanctuary before reaching the west country etc it could be a fair assumption that you will still find the population of the West Country doubling from 2.2 million to nearly 5 million within only a few weeks of a disaster with thousands more trickling in in the following weeks and months.
Once the initial wave of motorised refugees have been accounted for you will find plenty more arriving by bicycle, foot, horse, canoe, canal boat, coastal boats, helicopter, small aircraft etc for weeks and weeks after the initial waves of refugees.
But hey those already who have relocated to the area have already worked out the risks and scenarios, logistics and resources to the nth degree I mean apart from folks like BP born and raised in the area surely no intelligent well researched prepper would move to another area without carrying out a full and comprehensive risk analysis WOULD THEY ?.

To me that just sounds like people jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Why would they do it. I'm not saying that people won't head this way, of course they will, but the kinds of figures being quoted are unrealistic.

And surely if the whole of the South East and Midlands are in such an uninhabitable state that a mass exodus of all the Cities is happening, then surely the South West would also be in a similar uninhabitable state rather than being immune and remaining picture postcard perfect???

In which case it looks like the best place for any Prepper will be to head to the cities for some peace and solitude as everyone else will clearly be on the beaches of the South West.....

As for the back lanes, the farmers would soon have them blocked off, I'd like to see your average family in their ford focus trying to get past a bale of Haylage plonked in the middle of country lane. Farmers down here have been blocking access to fields, lanes and roads for years to prevent travellers and ravers going where they want.

And despite what some say, fuel will be a major issue for lots of people. The fuel stations will run dry in a matter of hours, most people will not have a full tank of fuel and they will not be driving at 56mph along an open motorway, they will probably be crawling at a few miles an hour, or just be stuck because the roads are blocked by accidents caused by idiots desperate to get ahead of the hoards.

With the convergence of the M5 and M4 with people from the Midlands/North, Wales and London/South all converging on a very small piece of real estate, then that is where the major problems will be and a lot of people will reconsider their options and simply be stuck with no way to move on.

Which part of the "South West" do you think you can get to (under normal conditions) in 90 minutes?? Brum to Bristol is 90 minutes Bristol to Exeter is another 90 minutes. Similarly London to Exeter is a 3+ hours car journey. After TSHTF, its anyone's guess how long it will take.

On the other hand, Birmingham to Newcastle is just over 3 hours, a comparable time, whereas Liverpool to Newcastle is less than 3 hours and London to Newcastle is less than 5 hours, I think we need to start promoting Northumberland and the Yorkshire Moors as the ideal bug out locations, far more resources than the SW, plus you are trapped on a peninsular