A Cornish property developer is proposing to build 56 houses – including 30 affordable homes – in a village at the gateway of a Cornish peninsula which is in dire need of affordable properties for locals.

Acorn Blue – which has developed around 450 homes in Cornwall since 2008 – is seeking advice from Cornwall Council’s planning department before submitting a full application to built the properties, including a new rectory, access, estate roads and landscaping on a 5.7 acres of land east of The Glebe in Tregony at the entrance to the Roseland Peninsula.

Acorn Blue was approached by Savills on behalf of the Truro Diocesan board to deliver an affordable housing led scheme for the rural exception site [sites which allow affordable and market housing in more isolated rural locations which might ordinarily be rejected by local authorities].

A pre-app statement by planning consultants Business Location Services Ltd states: “The Diocese, as a major landowner and owners of heritage buildings, is seeking to raise funds to invest in heritage assets and to provide a new rectory for Tregony. 

Acorn Blue has worked closely with the diocese in respect of the provision of a new rectory together with the provision of much-needed affordable housing for Tregony and the Roseland.”

The statement highlights an exceptionally high affordable housing need in Tregony with Cuby parish and the wider Roseland parishes, with 157 people/households on Cornwall’s Homechoice Register in need of affordable housing; 45 of whom are registered as having an affordable housing need in Tregony with Cuby alone.

“Given the high affordable housing need in Tregony with Cuby parish together with the wider Roseland parishes the proposed development seeks to provide up to 30 affordable dwellings together with 25 open market dwellings and a new rectory on site,” states the pre-app.

The development would include a mix of one bedroom flats and two to five bedroom houses.

A pre-application advice request for a proposed residential development of 70 units involving a larger area than that currently proposed was submitted in 2018. 

The conclusion of the advice provided by Cornwall Council was that the site was not considered to be suitable for open market housing although part of the application site had the potential as a rural exception affordable housing led development.