Cornwall Council pledges to tackle ‘perfect storm’ housing crisis

Cornwall Council has restated its commitment to helping residents affected by the unprecedented pressure on housing in the region.

New action set out by the authority includes providing hundreds of temporary and emergency accommodation places so local people can be housed without worrying about being asked to leave at a moment’s notice, as well as building more council houses as well as affordable homes for local people to rent or buy.

Council-led housing programmes are on course to provide 400 homes a year but there are ambitions to drive this number to a much higher level. Council housing is a top priority and provision is being scaled up. For example, 16 new Council homes for social rent have just been completed on two sites in Veryan – all for local households.

The council is also buying hundreds of new and existing homes, investing £200 million in a Housing Development Programme with Treveth to deliver a mix of homes for private rent, open market sale, affordable rent and shared ownership.

Olly Monk, portfolio holder for housing and planning, said: “The lack of decent affordable housing that residents are experiencing all over Cornwall has been brought to a head in the aftermath of the pandemic. There is an imbalance in supply and demand that we have never seen before. We understand the frustrations of residents who are caught up in this and we’re doing all in our power to tackle it.”

“The Covid pandemic has brought about extraordinary circumstances and pressures. More people continue to need emergency accommodation which has been in increasingly short supply as hotels and B&Bs have been booked up for the summer holiday season.

“In addition, the boom in house prices and the demand for holiday accommodation is causing a significant and sudden reduction in the availability of homes to rent and a matched sudden escalation in rental costs. Private landlords have been moving away from long-term letting and instead moving towards the short-term holiday market, as Covid travel restrictions has increased the demand from visitors looking for a stay cation in places like Cornwall.

“These factors, together with the shift to working from home which means that people can work from anywhere in the country, is seeing more people move to areas like Cornwall and so has put unprecedented pressure on the amount of open market housing available to buy.”