A PARISH which has one of the largest numbers of people in social housing need in East Cornwall is about to consult the public on what sites could be developed in the future.

Around 20 sites in St Ann's Chapel, Calstock, Harrowbarrow and Metherell have been identified following a plea to local landowners, and now it is up to the residents to have their say.

Cornwall Council has been working with Calstock Parish Council over the past year to assess and grade different locations that have come forward, following an appeal for land in the parish newsletter and local press.

On Thursday, November 4, in the Tamar Valley Centre at Drakewalls, a consultation event will take place from 3pm to 8pm.

Chairman of Calstock Parish Council Dick Hoile is urging people to come along: 'We have graded the sites in terms of what we feel are good, okay or poor but it is not just for us to say,' he said. 'It is very important that people come and give their opinion so we get the right affordable housing in the right place.

'At the moment we are just talking about location not the design or how many houses, that will come later.'

In its parish plan, which is now more than five years old, the council stipulated that residential developments should not be more ten houses. Mr Hoile said that although now there was some flexibility in that number, the council stood by its desire to see several small developments rather than one large one.

Affordable housing team leader for East Cornwall Christopher Lunn said that in the past few years there had not been a lot of affordable housing built in the Calstock parish, which was made up of many individual settlements. There were now 150 people on the housing register, which was one of the highest figures for parishes in the east of Cornwall.

'This is the only parish in the east of the county where we have carried out this exercise and put out a call for land,' he said. 'There are one or two parishes in the west of Cornwall which also have high numbers of people on the housing register but in the east Calstock is a bit of a trailblazer.'

Mr Lunn said this was a genuine consultation: 'There are no preconceived ideas whatsoever. We really want local people to have a say in what happens in the future and we are thinking the same as the parish council in that small developments of around ten houses are much better serving the community as Calstock is such a dispersed parish.'

He added that with the news that the Government could be cutting social housing funding by 50%, the future was uncertain.

'It will depend on the order of priority,' he said. 'If there is a site in Cornwall that is top of the list it will almost certainly get funding but maybe not if it's a few hundred down the list.

'All we know is that we are clearly not going to have anything like the funding we have had in the past — it's going to be jolly tough.'