Solution to affordable homes – stop building

THE only way to tackle the shortage of affordable housing in the Westcountry is to stop all new developments, a Cornish MP has claimed.

Andrew George has launched a campaign calling on the Government to abandon its plans to build thousands more homes in the region and instead concentrate on buying up existing homes for the least well-off.

Ministers insist the number of houses across Devon and Cornwall has got to be increased to help more people on to the property ladder.

However, the economic slowdown and the struggling mortgage industry has forced a number of big construction firms to put the brakes on new housing estates, as they struggle to sell properties which have already been built.

The Government recently launched the region's planning blueprint which proposes building more than 211,000 new homes across the Westcountry by 2026.

It proposes an extra 143,000 homes across the Devon area including 33,000 in Plymouth, 15,000 in Exeter, and 12,300 in the South Hams.

In Cornwall there are 68,000 houses planned, but Mr George, MP for St Ives, said efforts should be concentrated on meeting local housing need “rather than treating the Cornish countryside as a developers' paradise”. He said the Government cannot “build its way out of the housing crisis”.

He points to the evidence that for 40 years, Cornwall has been one of the fastest growing places in the UK but housing shortages have worsened.

His petition says Cornwall has been “a developers' paradise for 40 years … yet the housing problems of local people have got much worse”. Thousands are being distributed across his St Ives constituency and it has already been backed by a number of community groups.

“It may sound contradictory, but the best way to meet local housing need in rural areas like Cornwall is to, first of all, stop all development,” Mr George said.

“We will never get affordable sites for local housing in the countryside if landowners are encouraged to believe that they can hold out for the kind of lottery win-style prices by waiting for planning permission, for housing.

“We must give our local communities the power to control second homes and to set targets for meeting affordable housing need. We should give our local communities a breathing space.

“If the market is cooling over the next year or so then now is the chance to bring forward developments which just meet the need for local housing.”

He said small pockets of farmland, which would not normally need planning permission, can unlock new schemes which should then meet the need for affordable housing in perpetuity.

The Prime Minister has placed huge emphasis on his plans to build three million more homes by 2020. When challenged over the target by Mr George, the Premier insisted “surely the answer is to build more homes”.

And housing minister Caroline Flint has been consistent in saying while projects need to be developed to ensure low-cost housing goes to those who need it: “The point is that we have not built enough homes for the past 15 years or more.”