In his previous blog, Jonathan Griffin summarised the findings of the Housing Needs Survey and underlined the need for additional affordable housing to buy or rent in the parish. The question is how much do we need?

One of the big surprises of the Housing Needs Survey is that we have under-estimated the number of people looking for affordable houses to buy or rent.

Cornwall Council knows of 58 families looking for places to rent. The survey shows that there are up to another 54 people looking for an affordable house to buy.

112 is a big total, although it is stressed that this is not a target as such; just an estimate at the time of the survey. Although all these people have connections to the parish – living here, working here, having family here and so on – they may also have connections to other parishes.

Arriving at a sensible target is going to be difficult. Providing an additional 100 or so houses would be adding about 10% to the size of the parish. That would be much more than our services and roads could cope with and would lead to a dramatic loss of valuable AONB land.

A figure of 30-50 new affordable houses during the period to 2030 may be more realistic and, as the previous blog suggested, it is within the scope of people’s expectations.

60% of these people are looking for somewhere to rent and around 35% for some form of purchase (the figures will overlap of course). Cornwall Council are suggesting that a ratio of 70% rental and 30% shared ownership continues to be the right sort of ratio for a new development.

Why do these people need to move? About a third need somewhere more affordable; a third are living in a house that is too small and a third are living with a relative or friend.

They need space too. Nearly 47% wanted a 2 bedroom house and 36% a 3 bedroom one.

If this is to be the pace of development then where should the new houses go? That is the subject of the next blog.