FEARS that West Devon Borough Council?s planning committee is not doing enough to prevent young families being driven out of the area by ?exorbitant? house prices were expressed at a meeting last week. At present there is a vacuum in the council?s policy regarding applications by parents to build cheap houses for their grown-up children so they can continue living in the areas where they were brought up. Angry councillors voiced their concerns whilst discussing a plan for an ?affordable? home at Sydenham Damerel. Applicants Mr and Mrs D Pattison had applied for outline permission to put up a dwelling in their garden at Rose Hall for their son, his wife and their child, who are currently living in a mobile home on site. The applicant?s agent, Lawrence Osbourne, said it was difficult to see how his client, who had recently started his own business, would achieve a home in any other way. ?The mobile home is currently the subject of an enforcement notice which would effectively make them homeless,? he said. Chief planning officer Stephen Gill said that in order for a house to be affordable, it needed to be available to people on the housing register ?those who could not afford to buy or rent privately. Affordable homes were usually added to large developments where the developer was required to provide 35% of social housing, although there were also a few exception sites. Mr Gill said there was a policy vacuum when it came to parents building a cheap home for sons or daughters. Cllr Dilwyn Hughes said the borough council should be supporting people with young children in West Devon and this application should be allowed. Cllr Jane Waterhouse said it was time to address this vacuum: ?Young people with families are our most productive residents yet we are losing them and primary school numbers are plummeting as a result. ?As it stands at the moment we have to say, sorry chaps, make them homeless, put them up in a bed and breakfast and they will be retired before they get a home.? The council was told that this sort of issue was not a matter for the council chamber but would be tested at an appeal.
