A DEVELOPER has thrown down the gauntlet to Cornwall Council to meet for a face-to-face appeal hearing as a row escalates over what the community feels is an attempt to wriggle out of providing affordable housing for Calstock.

Cornwall Council refused Mr M White of Construction Partners’ amendments adding garages and solar panels to five of the 33 homes at Bridge View in Calstock.

The council said it could not be sure the developer’s proposed alterations to five of the promised 15 affordable homes ‘would not harm the affordability and deliverability of some of the affordable dwellings... and in turn impede the efforts to meet the housing needs of the local community’.

The Devon-based developer has now appealed to the Government’s Planning Inspectorate over what he says are merely ‘minor’ changes.

However the feeling in Calstock is that the changes, involving adding garages and solar panels, would undermine the affordability of five homes in the scheme.

Calstock parish councillor for the Calstock ward Alastair Tinto said on Tuesday: ‘I’m very concerned that altering these five houses in effect take them out of the affordability range. I don’t know anybody who is not anything other than horrified about this.

‘It has always been a very controversial planning application. When we had our planning meeting [about the original application] the room was absolutely packed with the public and the original application had 80-odd public comments. About half supported the desperately needed affordable housing and about half opposed it, saying this is in an inappropriate place.

‘The parish council actually supported the application because of the affordable housing and that is why the council will not be happy if this reduces the number of affordable houses.’

Cornwall Council’s affordable housing team has asked for evidence from an independent surveyor that the proposed changes to five homes yet to be built would not price them beyond the reach of local people.

‘In order to assess if the proposed variation significantly alters the affordability of the affordable dwellings to a level which is deemed unsupportable, the Affordable Housing Team would need to see clearly evidenced open market valuations from a RICS valuer for plot numbers 6-10 with and without the proposed changes,’ the council stated.

For their part, developer Construction Partners said ‘because the local planning authority case as outlined in the refusal reason is unclear we are requesting that the appeal is determined via an informal hearing.

‘In addition an informal hearing would allow the viability report and the consultant responsible for that to be examined in greater detail.’The developer is asking to revise its Section 106 agreement - governing how much affordable housing it must legally provide - with Cornwall Council, again raising fears that it wants to water down its contribution to the affordable element of the scheme, originally agreed in 2018.

Among many objections received by Cornwall Council over the scheme was that of Juliet Hilary and Linda Fowler, who live in Harewood Road in Calstock.

They wrote: ‘This planning application had its majority of support because 15 of the properties were planned as affordable.

‘I am aware of four households in Calstock currently looking for rental properties and there are none, leaving them with no choice but to move out of their local community.

‘In the planning statement, it states that open market units comprise numbers 1 -10 and 21 - 33, i.e. 10 + 13 = 23 open market houses. That leaves 10 affordable units, a reduction of 5.’

Terry Lyons, also of Calstock, said:’ I am objecting to the above application on the grounds that any changes to the so called affordable homes will, in my opinion, make them a more attractive property to the open market which can only further negate any perceivable idea that they will be “affordable home” under the legal definition of the term.’