CORNWALL Council was accused of 'cack-handed incompetence' this week in its attempts to bring affordable housing to one of the parishes in most need in the county.

At a heated meeting in Harrowbarrow and Metherell Village Hall on Monday evening, attended by more than 100 residents, affordable housing officer for East Cornwall Christopher Lunn admitted there had been some mistakes in the process, including not consulting parishioners at an early stage.

With the Calstock parish having the highest number of people on the housing register in East Cornwall, Cornwall Council operated a 'call for land' exercise to find potential development sites and has been in talks with the parish council for the last few months over the suitability of these sites.

Some 20 locations were identified across the parish including six in Harrowbarrow but residents of the village were angry that there was little advertising for a public consultation day on November 4 at the Tamar Valley Centre at Drakewalls, when people were invited to give their opinions. At the meeting this week, a few days before the consultation period was due to end, residents called for the process to be re-started. They said there was too much conflicting information and misinformation about the suitability of land including access, numbers of houses and infrastructure capacity.

Project officer Victoria Regan said that some of the sites had considerable restraints and some others, which were deemed suitable, also had limitations and would probably be only suitable for a small number of homes.

She said that single developments were likely to be no more than 12 houses and only about three sites out of the 20 would be developed.

Mr Lunn added he understood there was capacity for extra children at Harrowbarrow Primary School but residents disagreed, some saying that they had to appeal to get their children accepted.

One resident said the consultation process was flawed because Harrowbarrow people would vote in favour of houses in Calstock and visa versa because 'they did not want them in their backyard.' There were calls for each of the settlements in the parish to be approached individually and for the council to think more creatively in terms of bringing empty homes back into use and building infill homes, not new estates.

Alan Davis said the council had called for two acre sites and even though a small number of houses might be built on the land in the first instance, there was always a chance that further planning applications would follow.

One resident said she did not want these 'nasty little houses ruining our lovely village'.

Resident Wendy Smith said she would like her children to be able to live locally and said it was unfortunate that the younger generation were not at the meeting to give the other view: 'I am sure lots of us would like to see our younger people on the housing ladder and living safely in our community. How many of us are going to be around in 20, 30 or 40 years time?'

Harrowbarrow resident Stefan Antoniuk said all he was hearing from council officers was 'I don't know that' and 'oh is that right?'

He said: 'I very much regret that your cack-handed incompetence has flawed what should have been a very good exercise in bringing an affordable housing solution to this parish. You have made a complete hash of it.'

Mr Lunn said there were 50 people on the housing register who wanted to live in the Calstock parish and met the criteria for affordable housing. He said from his experience there was probably in the region of another 50 in housing need who were not on that list.

He said the reason why discussions took place in private between the project officers and Calstock parish council was because at that stage a number of landowners did not want their sites to be in the public domain.

'The big mistake we made was not telling you (the public) that this process was going on,' he said. 'We could scrap this process today but it is a fact that there are people in this parish in housing need and we should be helping them.'

Mr Lunn agreed to lift the deadline but still invited people to submit their views through the questionnaires. He would take the comments from the meeting on board and decide over the coming days what the next stage would be.