Watching Doc Martin and one thing that is brought home to me

Oh go visit Port Isaac !
Truly beautiful place.

The roads are narrow so careful if you're driving.
But the sea air and local food is wonderful.

Same here. The built up area of the kommune I live in has only about 2 000 people but luckily here in Norway the basic rule of society is to leave people to their own devices unless they ask for help

I've just looked up Portwenn. Apparently it's actually Port Isaac on the north coast of Cornwall with a total population of between 720 and 1 500 people. But the lower village has only about 30 permanent residents! As in many Cornish places the locals have been priced out by second home owners and holiday lets in addition to changing working practices making traditional ways of life unviable.

It's remarkable how remote some parts of Cornwall can be even though the county is actually quite small. It can be quite time consuming to travel there because the roads are narrow. The nearest 'larger' town that is on a major road (A39) is Wadebridge which despite being only 8 miles (13 km) away takes 20 minutes by car or nearly an hour on the bus. And that's still only a population of 7 000, about the same as the total population of the kommune where I live in Norway. Kommune is local council/authority nothing to do with hippies or communists :-)

https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/uk-world-news/charming-cornish-coastal-village-its-10454985
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadebridge

A small village that still has local services? Are there such in real life?

It can be funny as hell though,and part of the charm is that hes a fish out of water😄