PA23/00995/PREAPP: St Endellion Parish Council has applied for a planning performance agreement before submitting a full application for 25 affordable homes and between three “live/work units” and three commercial units on land at Glebe Farm, St Endellion Road, St Endellion, near Port Isaac.

The council is working with agent Access Planning And Design Ltd on the development, which is considered to be of vital importance in the area. St Endellion Housing Working Group (STEND_HWG) was formed in March 2022, following a public meeting called by concerned residents anxious to ensure the community is strengthened by an increase in homes available to those living and working in parish.

The group, comprised of local residents, members of the business community, and a representative of the parish council is supported by Cornwall Community Land Trust. St Endellion Parish Council agreed to fund a housing needs survey to evidence the growing need for housing in the parish.

The villages of Port Isaac and, increasingly, Trelights in the parish of St Endellion have a large proportion of second homes. The build rate in the parish is currently low, largely limited to single infill dwellings, of which 12 have been permitted since 2014. St Endellion Neighbourhood Development Plan for 2020-30 created policies to support delivery of affordable housing on exception sites outside the settlement boundaries.

A planning statement says: “It is our belief, that a Community Land Trust model is the favoured choice, ensuring any housing remains affordable in perpetuity.”

In an accompanying heritage statement, the developers described how they planned to integrate the new development into a historical area. 

They said: “Introducing a sympathetic mix of materials, drawn from local references would help to integrate the development into its surroundings and could also be used to break up the mass and appearance of the development form.

“Within the historic core of the settlement the walls of the buildings are predominantly stone rubble with large stone quoins at corners and red brick used for lintels, window reveals and chimney stacks. The use of red brick used for these elements reflects the area’s sea trading past as bricks were often used as ships ballast. Roofs are predominantly local slate.

Within the modern farmyard the steel barn structures are predominately faced with natural timber vertical cladding that has weathered to a grey colour, exposed steelwork is grey painted or galvanised that has dulled grey. 

Roofs are a mixture of profiled cement or metal sheeting. In the main these are grey in colour though with two noticeable exceptions where a coloured roof has been used unsuccessfully. 

The most noticeable is the large modern barn to the south-east corner of the current farmyard. 

This was originally blue in colour now faded to a light green and has the unfortunate effect of being highly visible in distant views detracting the eye from the church tower.

“With the exception of the coloured roofs the local material palette, though quite muted does a successful job of blending the buildings into the landscape, reducing their impact where they do feature on the skyline and focusing attention on the Church tower meaning Sir John’s Betjeman’s description of it is as relevant today as it was when he first saw it.”

The applicants also justified the need they have for the properties in the area, adding: “They key finding the survey has revealed is the volume of hidden need revealed, identified need among those who aren’t registered with Homechoice.

St Endellion Housing Needs Advice (AECOM) 2015, (Appendix 4) indicated a high-proportion of social rented need. 

This new survey indicates a higher than expected need for affordable to purchase housing. 

It should be noted that contiguously, higher end hospitality businesses have rapidly expanded in the interim fuelling housing need. 

“Newer hospitality employees may often be remunerated at the higher end of our local income spectrum, evidenced in the number of positive responses relating to affordable to purchase homes.

“However, it is also clear many longer term residents are living in overcrowded homes, (Appendix 5) and many homes have more than one household living together. 

To summarise, it is clear there is an acute housing shortage in the Parish of St Endellion.

PA23/06902: Cornerstone, the UK’s leading mobile infrastructure services company, has applied to install a 30-metre high telecommunications tower with three antennas, two transmission dishes and other equipment in a compound on land north west of De Lank Waterworks, St Breward, on Bodmin Moor. The site is within the Cornwall area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB).