Each vehicle registered in Cornwall has just 10.4 metres of classified road space or 19.8 metres of total road space including unclassified roads and lanes. The number of vehicles registered rose by 14.3% over the last 10 years. Is this sustainable?
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We have a situation where the plan is for 52,000 plus houses to be built between 2010 and 2030, with the likelihood that the target will be pushed up to 60,000.
Yet the evidence is that the maximum needed over that period is 27,000. A more reasonable figure would be around 5,000.
If we decide on the mid-point we get 16,000.
So why is the target so much higher and being raised?
Probably a belief that somehow building houses and bumping up the population will jump-start the economy. It hasn’t in the past and wont in the future.
Now some readers will ask about affordability, people on the waiting list.
There are in fact two elements to housing policy, one is the provision of houses, the other lies outside house building altogether.
With regard to building we need to change the planning system to stop and then reduce the number of properties used for holiday homes and lets.
The other element is a combination of reforming the private rental market so that rents are controlled and people have more security of tenure, improving the disposable income of those on low incomes and reforming the benefit system.
Building more houses is NOT the answer!
Someone has asked why it is that a new primary school is being provided in the ‘garden village’
ACE Academy Trust has secured the deal to provide the 420-place primary school on the site and is aiming to open to its first form entry in September 2020.
It is usually implied that new houses are for local residents. In this case it could be assumed that these would be largely from St. Austell and the clay villages. In which case, will existing schools have fewer places as people transfer?
We suspect not as the net effect of the new houses will be more people moving to Cornwall!
If the idea is to build 60,000 houses and we need at most 27,000 who are the other 33,000 houses for?
Second homes?
Holiday lets?
Encourage more people to move to Cornwall for the rural lifestyle!!!!
Some people might wonder why we don’t transfer some of the second homes and holiday lets to permanent use?
The current target set out in the ‘Local Plan’ is for 52,800 dwellings but recent material implies that the number is likely to be bumped up to 60,000.
Lets get back to the basic question here – how many new houses does Cornwall actually need?
It’s fairly straightforward, using existing evidence to estimate what need would be over the plan period 2010 to 2030.
The figures are based on:
Existing population in 2011
Expected change in household size from 2011 to 2031
Changes in population due to natural change (births and deaths)
Population change due to in-migration
The results
Cornwall’s resident population will slowly decline as deaths exceed births.
Household size is assumed to decrease over time
Scenarios
(A)Declining population – this assumes that there is no increase due to in-migration as numbers moving in equal the number of people leaving Cornwall.
Under this scenario there would be a need for -300 dwellings.
(B) Steady state population – this assumes a declining resident population but with some increase in net in-migration with the result that the population remains stable.
Under this scenario there would be a need for 4,800 dwellings
(C) Rising population – based on past trends regarding population increase due to in-migration, minus declining resident population.
Under this scenario there would be a need for 26,900 dwellings
# Additional dwellings to take account of the Home Choice Register have not been included due to the fact that the HCR does not measure the need for new dwellings but rather is indicative of a need for affordable and/or suitable housing.
Wait until tomorrow to find out and its not what you might think!
Amid the onrushing tide of worrying world news stories, the outcome of a 123-person vote in Truro’s county hall might seem relatively trivial. If you live in Cornwall or have the faintest interest in the growth of professional club rugby union, however, Tuesday is as defining a moment as any in the county’s sporting history.
No pressure on Cornwall’s councillors but the decision on whether or not to approve council funding for the proposed new Stadium for Cornwall goes way beyond sport. If you had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to boost your local region’s economy, offer hope to those young athletes not destined to become world-class surfers or sailors and create a lasting community legacy, would you grasp it? Or would you take the view that public money allocated for development is better spent on something other than a shiny ballpark which may never host sustainable top‑tier football or rugby?
Jack Nowell: We’ve all got a tattoo in my family – it’s what fishermen did
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Not all those voting are sports fans and political pressures also mean the vote could still go either way. The positive argument runs as follows: the council says ‘Yes’ and approves £3m of funding towards the stadium project, which it remains confident the government will match. This would remove the funding logjam that has delayed the much-debated £14.3m project for years.
An initial 6,000-capacity complex with a 4G artificial pitch would be in use for 365 days a year, shared by Cornish Pirates, Truro City FC and Truro and Penwith College. There would also be a health club and Cornwall’s biggest conference facility attached, all on a site with excellent transport links to the rest of the far south-west.
The community is wider than the sporting fraternity
Will surfers and sailors use the stadium?
Excellent transport links??? Only by car which is something which should be discouraged!
Who writes this unadulterated rubbish?
