CORNWALL Council has announced an innovative new scheme to help alleviate the housing crisis by delivering thousands of affordable and market rented homes on its own land.

The Homes Cornwall project – which is supported by the Government’s Homes England housing, land and regeneration agency – will use local construction companies to build 4,000 new homes on 400 acres of council-owned land.

Including the already-announced and approved Langarth Garden Village, near Truro, that amounts to almost 8,000 homes on 800 acres. The council has already earmarked 63 potential urban extensions or infill site options.

The properties will only be available for ‘local people’, meaning people living in Cornwall, and will solely be for principal residence – the council will ensure they can’t be sold as second homes or holiday lets.

Cllr Peter La Broy, the Independent cabinet member for housing, initiated the project with fellow Independent cabinet member Cllr Tim Dwelly, who oversees economic regeneration and investment.

He said: “Homes Cornwall is our way of putting our land on the table, to work with interested partners, but the caveat is we want those people to deliver housing for local people. It’s about solving that real problem of under-supply of housing in Cornwall.”

There are currently 25,000 households or individuals on the HomeChoice register waiting for a home, while 850 households are at risk of homelessness and are supported in temporary accommodation, which costs the council £12m per year.

Under the Labour Government’s planning framework, Cornwall’s new housing target is 4,400 homes per year, a 68 per cent increase on its previous target. The council has historically delivered 2,600 to 2,700 homes per year, with 2,232 homes in 2024-25.

“What we’ve decided to do with this council is use our land, put it on the table and try to provide not only affordable social housing, which really matters, but also market rented housing that’s secure for local people,” said Cllr Dwelly.

“We have tried to find innovative ways of moving forward to try to solve the housing problem that we’ve got,” added Cllr La Broy.

By receiving support from Homes England, the council hopes to accelerate delivery of housing with the intention of securing loan, equity and infrastructure grant investment.

The plan is also to help expand Cornwall’s construction industry by working with local companies to build the properties. The aim is to take the first tranche of sites to the market before the end of the year.

Cllr Dwelly said: “When we first looked at this about five years ago, we thought there was a housing emergency. So many people were losing their private rented homes – people living in Cornwall were basically forced to leave their homes, which were then being turned into holiday lets, second homes and Airbnb.”

He was critical of the former Conservative administration for not taking on the Homes Cornwall project.

Cllr Dwelly added that the plan to build on land, which has been identified by the council as surplus to requirements, has the backing of the Lib Dem / Independent administration and has gone out to all other councillors for comment.

What would they say to people who complain there is already too much development in Cornwall? “When people say ‘oh, concreting over Cornwall’, that really isn’t the case,” said Cllr Dwelly.

“This programme is 0.001 per cent of land in Cornwall which will be used to provide almost 8,000 homes. It’s only just under four per cent of the land that the council itself owns, so from a scale point of view, it’s not concreting over Cornwall, it’s trying to find homes for people with kids who really need to be able to go to school locally.”

“This might be a silly point to make, but every home was built on what was once a green field,” added Cllr La Broy. “We need to look at providing homes for people in Cornwall but in a sensible and measured way, and make the absolute best of our assets.”

Cllr Dwelly said: “The ‘Nimby’ thing is not us – we don’t think that is a fair enough way to respond to the experiences of the families who’ve been through this hell, losing their homes and having to live in temporary accommodation, and go to work or school many, many miles away.”

Why work with private developers? “Clearly we can’t do all this work ourselves. Cornwall Council does build homes, social homes, and we’ve got a really good track record in doing that,” said Cllr La Broy, who added that a recent Government-sponsored report saw Cornwall Council receive “a really good review on our house-building services”.

“One of the things that makes this different is that where we own the land, we decide who the developers are going to be and we will only be making that land available to those people provided they provide the social housing, but also a very high proportion of market rented property to local people,” added Cllr Dwelly.

“We know it works as this is something Treveth [the council’s house-building company] has already done successfully. There are hundreds of people paying market rents who are from the local community living in Treveth properties and they’re very pleased to be there.

“So we want that to be done at scale. We are not talking here about homes for holiday lets or second homes. We will rule all of that out.”

Social landlords, including housing associations, will also be involved in the Homes Cornwall scheme.