THERE has been a 70% increase in the number of people needing affordable housing in the Calstock parish in the past year, developer Andrew Selleck told a public meeting this week as he unveiled proposals to build on a site in St Ann's Chapel.

The number of people in need has risen from 116 to 197, with Calstock one of the priority parishes for affordable housing in the east of the county.

But the scheme to develop Nicholas's Field, next to the recreation ground, met with concerns from around 30 local residents, who raised issues about access, the lack of infrastructure and jobs and open market housing on the site.

The land behind Chapel Close has been identified as one of five sites suitable for development in the Calstock parish following a call for land process and public consultation by Cornwall Council.

The Stoke Climsland- based firm Selleck Nicholls has been building low cost homes in the area for the past ten years, most recently at Kelly Bray. The company's most recent application to build six homes on a site at Latchley was turned down by Cornwall Council.

Mr Selleck said he specialised in building homes that people could afford to buy, with the average cost of a one bed home £70,000, a two bed home £87,000 and a three bed home £127,000.

If the development at St Ann's goes ahead —and a planning application will be submitted within three months — these homes will be offered to people within the parish, who met the criteria, with a clause that if they wished to sell in the future, they must sell to a person who also qualified and that the percentage of discount that they received was passed on.

But the low cost homes, which may also be a mix of to buy properties and rented social housing managed by a housing association, would have to be subsidised by some open market housing, with a ratio of around 60% to 40%, said the developer. The site is expected to accommodate around 50 to 80 homes, with a mix of one, two, three and four bed properties and may include some flats.

The meeting was told that the billions of pounds that was ploughed into affordable housing by the last Government had now been stopped apart from a 'fraction of funding' for major cities.

Mr Selleck said when he was young, a single person could afford to buy a property on his or her own wage but times had changed drastically and many couples and families in Cornwall were struggling to afford a home, due to high house prices and low wages.

But there were concerns at the meeting that planning consent had been given for more than 200 homes in St Ann's Chapel already, and the local schools and doctor's surgery were nearly full to capacity. The post office was closing and the village would be left with one store, albeit with a new post office service, and the bus links were limited.

Residents of Chapel Close said putting the access through the close was a bad idea on safety grounds and a separate access was needed at the bottom of the new development. Some were concerned that their views across to the River Tamar would be obliterated.

They were also unhappy about the level of open market housing which they said was likely to be bought by people from outside the area and potentially second home owners, and not addressing the problem of local people in need.

Residents were asked to fill in a feedback form to influence the type of homes and design of the site.

Cllr Dorothy Kirk said: 'More than a year ago there was a call for land and a consultation process.

'We have a Government that assumes planning permission will be given regardless of how we feel about it. The issue here is how much of that development is for local people.

'We have people on the minimum wage and we have a duty to provide housing for these people.'