A HOUSING developer and the local community came head-to-head at a planning inquiry this week over how much affordable housing must be provided on a controversial development in Calstock.

It was standing room only at the village hall on Tuesday as Government planning inspector Nick Davis heard from Cornwall Council officers and a team for developer Michael White of Construction Partners.

The developer is appealing Cornwall Council’s refusal to allow garages and solar panels to be added to five of the homes, which residents and the parish council say will make them likely to be sold on the open market. The half-built development of 33 homes, which split the village when granted permission in 2018, only received parish council backing because 45% of the houses – 15 – would be affordable.

The council said it could not be sure the developer’s proposed alterations to five of the promised 15 affordable homes on the site ‘would not harm the affordability and deliverability of some of the affordable dwellings... and in turn impede the efforts to meet the housing needs of the local community’.

The Devon-based developer is appealing over what he says are merely ‘minor’ changes, suggesting they would not make the houses more expensive. This was disputed by residents at the appeal hearing, however.

Calstock resident Juilet Hilary said: ‘If you are a first-time buyer, any extra expense could make them unaffordable. Some of the people who are here and those who we are representing will not be in the same financial position as you. Any extra cost will make a huge difference.’

Cornwall councillor for Calstock Dorothy Kirk said: ‘What I don’t understand is you put in a planning application because you wanted to do one thing. So if you want to do something different, you should go back and apply again.’

The developer’s representative Robin Furby, of Section 106 Management, went on to suggest that it could no longer afford to build 15 homes for either shared ownership or social rental. This was attributed to soaring cost of building materals in the current economic climate.

He proposed at the planning meeting that the offer for affordable housing be reduced from the 45% agreed (15 homes) to 30% (10 homes), the minimum ratio allowed for affordable housing on developments in Cornwall.

However Cllr Tinto said he and the parish council would not have supported the application on that basis.

‘I would like you to understand that his was a controversial application right from the start,’ he said. ‘There were 132 public comments and around half supported it and half were against it. Many of us who supported it supported it because it contains this volume of affordable housing.

‘As the person on the parish council who proposed the parish council supported it I know it was the amount of affordable housing that convinced the parish council that we should support it and I have to say we made that decision to considerable disgust from people locally who didn’t want it at all.’

Simon Bell, also speaking for the develeoper, said ‘times had changed’ since the application’s approval in 2018. He said Construction Partners had honestly intended to provide 15 affordable homes at the time but ‘it is no longer possible’ because of soaring costs. This prompted a retort from the floor as to why the affordable homes had not been built first.

Calstock resident, local developer Colin Doble said it was true that building costs had soared by 40 per cent.

Speaking outside the hearing, Emma Hodgson said: ‘I’m a local resident who originally supported it and obviously I only supported it because of the amount of affordable housing.’

Cllr Tinto said there was a ‘desperate’ need for more homes at affordable rents for local families in Calstock. ‘There are no other big development sites in Calstock so if this doesn’t go ahead there is very little on offer. That is why I feel so strongly about it.’