A new development of 18 purpose-built SoloHaus modular homes to provide safe and secure homes for rough sleepers at Newtown, near Penzance, will open shortly.
It comes as the number of households in Cornwall living in temporary or emergency accommodation has passed 900, which includes 486 single people and almost 400 families.
Garth Baya an Garrek (Mounts Bay Court) follows on from similar schemes in Truro, Newquay and Penryn which have been developed as ‘move on’ sites to provide safe and secure homes for people in urgent housing need. The site includes a communal and staff building where housing management and support staff will be based.
Each development provides modular homes with outside space, utilising low carbon heating technologies. The homes are specifically intended to help those with a history of homelessness who are ready to move on from emergency accommodation or other provision, and will help reduce the need to place people in expensive, nightly-paid hotels and B&Bs.
The site will be managed by Cornwall Housing Ltd which will provide all of the housing management functions, ensuring the smooth operation and maintenance of the homes and the site. Cornwall Council’s rough sleeper team will provide tenancy sustainment support, helping residents to integrate into their new homes and maintain their tenancies successfully.
The last official rough sleeper count, undertaken in November 2024, recorded 53 people sleeping rough across Cornwall. There are currently 916 households in temporary accommodation, of which 390 are families with children and 486 are single people.
A spokesperson for the council said: “People can find themselves homeless for many reasons, including family or relationship breakdown, fleeing domestic violence, eviction from a privately rented home (including ‘no fault’ evictions), loss of income/employment, bereavement, significant changes to mental or physical health, or struggling to cope with life outside the Armed Forces.”
The council is also progressing on a programme to purchase 50 high quality two- and three-bed properties by the end of 2025 to be used as temporary accommodation for families.
The programme is being developed at a capital cost of up to £17.2-m, on an invest-to-save basis, generating a net saving to the council of 74 per cent by not putting families in emergency accommodation and enabling more residents to be housed in high quality, stable, temporary accommodation.
The council is also continuing work to:
- Buy existing homes to use as social housing
- Build more council houses for local people to rent or buy
- Support the provision of affordable homes by housing associations for local people to rent or buy
- Ensure sites deliver affordable housing through the planning process
- Support community-led organisations that want to deliver their own homes
- Offer loans to bring empty homes back into use
- Enable communities to stop new builds being snapped up by would be second homeowners.
Following a deal with award-winning housebuilder The Hill Group, Cornwall Council bought SoloHaus homes to provide secure, comfortable homes as follow-on accommodation to local people as they progress out of emergency housing, helping them regain their independence.
The specially designed modular homes provide a safe, comfortable, and independent space for residents and arrive fully furnished, ready for installation onto a pre-prepared site. Designed to house single people, the homes have a 60-year lifespan and are built to Future Homes Standards, exceeding building regulations for energy efficiency and sound insulation.