Housing help at Rock and East Portlemouth

Following my last entry it's worth recording that there's more help for locals in need of a roof over their head, this time at Rock on the east side of the Camel estuary in North Cornwall and at East Portlemouth deep in the south of Devon.

These two settlements are the last places in my two counties where you might expect local people to have any measure of success in finding a home but I'm glad to say that there is some good news for them.

First of all, Rock. With the help of local and parish councils a project is being undertaken by the St Minver Community Land Trust. They have bought land at Penmayne Farm, just inland from highly expensive Rock, for 12 self build bungalows. All the homes had to be affordable as a condition of planning permission; construction has started and the 12 families who will be living in them all have local connections. An interesting aside is that revenue accruing to North Cornwall District from the council tax for second homes is being used in order to pay for infrastructure at the site.

Now over to East Portlemouth, the small village that one sees across the harbour from Salcombe. Again very expensive and I think with 70% plus second homes. The Waterhouse family have lived there for decades and pensioner Isobel Waterhouse who inherited four cottages there could easily have sold them on for a good deal of money. But she has adopted a different course and has formed a trust to ensure that they can be rented out at reasonable rates to locals. A brother of mine phoned to say that this particular story had featured in 'The Independent'! As my brothers and I spent our early years in Salcombe then happenings in that area have a special significance.

As someone who doesn't want any village to become the preserve of the second home owning mega rich I have to say that I'm heartened by these reports.

Affordable housing for Bratton Fleming

The village of Bratton Fleming in North Devon lies just to the west of Exmoor National Park and is the first location to benefit from North Devon District Council's new local lettings policy. Fifteen affordable homes have been built on land owned by the Council: 11 rented properties together with 4 houses sold for shared ownership. The idea is to help those people with strong connections with the village but maybe not yet starting a family to stay in the area rather than casting the net too wide. All very admirable and it will be interesting to see if NDDC come up with some more schemes of a similar type.

One downside is the fact that the council have used former allotment land for this exercise although it's possible that the locals aren't into allotments; I don't know one way or the other on this I must admit.

We can expect the subject of housing to be a big, big issue in the months ahead in both national and local government. I've noticed that neither of the two main parties are prepared to mention second homes, something very relevant to Devon and Cornwall. The fact is that it is a tricky matter for them as they are conscious that they might upset 'Middle England', a similar problem occurs regarding any proliferation in the number of greenfield sites used for new houses.

The next 12 months promise to give Gordon Brown an extremely bumpy ride, resolving the housing crisis with higher cost of living and more repossessions added to the mix is just one of the headaches he will have.

Good news from Caradon

We love to slag off local councils don't we? Well I am glad to report a couple of good pieces of news from Caradon District Council which deserve an airing. The first is that the council are just embarking on a two year affordable housing scheme worth some £10.6 million pounds. As part of the first phase of work the council are collaborating with Wiltshire based Sarsen Housing Association to build 19 properties at St Ann's Chapel which is that long straggling village between Callington and Gunnislake. The development will include 17 two, three and four bedroom houses together with a couple of one bedroom flats. Nine properties will be for rent and the other ten are going to be on a shared ownership basis. Affordable homes are very much 'flavour of the month' with Caradon.

The other recent positive is that there is now a link on the Caradon website (bottom right hand side of their homepage) which enables one to look at submitted planning applications. This is more than a summary, it includes plans, correspondence, letters of support and objection, in fact anything one would expect to see in their files at Luxstowe House. Now this is good use for the Internet!

What I find worrying at present is the threat to our much maligned local councils. There is talk of that tier of local government being removed so that there would be nothing between our parish council and Cornwall County Council. What a total disaster for local democracy that would be. Take planning for example. As explained one can now go on line to look at planning applications (for those without a personal computer then I suppose one can go on the net at your local library to get the same information) but the problem that will occur will be the greatly increased distance for the public to go to a planning committee meeting. For instance I can accept turning out on a wet November night to go to Liskeard but if the planning decision was being made at St Austell or Truro would I go? H'm not sure about that. Caradon already have East and West sub-committees for planning and even then it is difficult for members from Torpoint for example making good reasoned judgements on matters affecting Gunnislake.

For all its imperfections I am convinced that the present local government system mostly provides a good balance between efficiency and local democracy although I would like to see more notice taken of parish councils. The moral: if it ain't broke don't fix it.