We must do something about affordable housing in Cornwall

All politicians are agreed there is a real problem of affordable housing in Cornwall. There is a lot of talk, enough hot air to accelerate climate change alone. But there is little effective action, despite the forest worth of paper consumed in strategies developed by government at various levels.

A large majority of our people live on the minimum wage. In the current situation they have absolutely no chance of owning a house of their own, or even obtaining a decent rented property with long term security of tenure at an affordable price. Properties for rent are all priced well over £500pcm, and paying £800-900 pcm for a three bedroomed house is not unusual. Looking in the West Briton any week will confirm that.

This situation is further amplified by people wanting to move to Cornwall to either retire here or get away from the 'madness' of life 'up country'. Who can blame them. Large company bonuses have also resulted in wealthy people using their money to buy up property in small villages for second, third or fourth home ownership. Some of these people never visit, or if they do; visit once or twice a year. Sometimes the properties are rented out for more income, sometimes they remain empty. There are many properties in the village I live who I have no idea who the owner is. Just to add further insult, when the price goes up, the property gets sold for a big profit. No body locally benefits, except the estate agent, and his/her tailor. It is now not uncommon for modest sized property on the Roseland, where I live, to be well over £500,000. What young person, however good a job, who wants to stay in Cornwall, can afford that? It is totally obscene.

The Green Party does have specific policies about housing i.e. new housing needs to be affordable, be environmentally friendly as possible, and where possible is built on 'brown field sites' so the countryside is not destroyed any further. This is all sensible, and it is essential for housing to be about 'need' not about profit. Our policies are outlined on our websites, for which there is a link below.

We do need a clear strategy and importantly Action for Cornwall. There has been alot of talk and very little follow up. Matthew Taylor the Lib Dem MP for Truro and Falmouth has done some good work on behalf of the government to look at this problem. There needs to be a cross party consensus to do something whoever wins power. Whether whatever is agreed will be enough remains to be seen. However, why should our young people (and our more maturely aged people!) have to pay such high rents, have lack of security of tenure, and have no chance of saving for a deposit? Why too should current housing development continue to concrete over our beautiful countryside, destroy our towns, and change Cornwall forever so that it will become no different from other areas of the UK?

That is why we need a 'Green' and progressive solution to the problem.

So what is to be done?

My view is that we should aim at housing the people who currently live in Cornwall, rather than aim to house further people who would like to move here. This does not mean people cannot move here, but we should not plan to build for them and thus aim at not destroying Cornwall's natural beauty any further. Too many developments aim to building for people with money and usually the 'upwardly mobile'.

Such a policy would mean:

1.Checking what the housing need is for the local people who live here, not who plan to come and live here. We need to know the projected need of our local population, and plan to meet that with minimal damage to the environment. This can be done, for example, by building on brownfield sites where we can. Where this is not possible we should aim at building small scale developments in our communities where our people want and need to live.
2. Any development needs to focus on affordable part-rent/part buy housing, and 100% rentable accommodation. Where there is a rentable element we need to give the tenant security of tenure so they do not risk being thrown out, as long as the property is looked after, the rent paid unless there are financial problems, and the tenancy agreement is maintained by both parties. This accommodation would be primarily aimed at those priced out of the current market (i.e the vast majority of young people or people paying exorbitant rents in the private sector).
3. Having restriction on further housing in tourist areas being purchased for investment/ second home/ holiday let use. This may be achieved by ensuring there are planning permission restrictions; additional purchase taxes for non residential property use, and increases in 'council tax' for such property. The objective would be to reduce house price inflation in these areas. We have too many 'Hampstead on Sea's', where the local heart has been ripped out, and 'Chelsea tractors' congest the lanes (and usually cannot reverse back down them when necessary) from Easter through to September.
4. We may also consider what they have done in the Channel Is. where there is property reserved for the local population so prices are kept reasonable for them. I have seen some of this in Cornwall already where some property is restricted for people with a 'local connection'. This is a good initiative.

I am not an expert in this field, and there is always a danger of designing a policy which results in the opposite of the intention. So it would be interesting to see what other people think, particularly those with greater expertise in this area than me. However, I would suggest the overriding considerations for our policy in this area are:
1, Prioritising affordable housing for local people
2, Ensuring there is no further mass developments such as is proposed in the Truro-Threemilestone corridor, and what has already happened in Helston and St Austell.

I hope this helps and promotes further discussion. We need to look out for those who need to have a decent roof over their heads and stop the migration of our young people from Cornwall so we can ensure a sustainable future for our people.

Our websites:
www.cornishgreenparty.org.uk
www.greenparty.org.uk