Cornwall Council to buy 50 houses for homeless families

Cornwall Council will buy 50 two and three-bedroom homes to house homeless families in a bid to stop paying for expensive emergency accommodation in B&Bs, hotels and caravan parks. The Conservative Cabinet agreed on Wednesday (June 12) that the council should buy 50 new builds, and some properties which are less than ten years old, to use as temporary accommodation for Cornish residents who find themselves without a home.

The council announced earlier this year that there are around 800 families living in emergency accommodation in Cornwall. The council's portfolio holder for housing, Olly Monk, has previously stated: "We get more and more people finding themselves in dire situations due to the fact that they're losing their rented accommodation. We aim to build and buy as many council homes as we possibly can to start absorbing some of those numbers."

Cllr Monk said the solution was "to own as much of that temporary and emergency accommodation" as possible to "reduce the amount of money we have to give to third parties". The 50 new homes will be bought in target areas with high emergency accommodation need, including Truro, Newquay, Falmouth, Penzance, Camborne, Redruth, St Austell, Liskeard, Hayle, Helston and Bodmin.

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Council leader Linda Taylor said at the meeting: "Two and three bedroom properties will be delivered by the end of 2025 at a cost of up to £17.2m, generating a net saving to the council of 74 per cent by not putting families into emergency accommodation." She said the council anticipates attracting grant funding to support the move.

Cllr Taylor said it would have a "significant positive and social impact on families with children, those with experience of care and those with mobility issues currently housed in unsuitable and short-term emergency provision by enabling more local residents to be appropriately housed in high quality, stable, temporary accommodation, in turn reducing the number of families housed in expensive, nightly paid emergency accommodation. It will also contribute to reducing the council's overspend".

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Portfolio holder for children and families Barbara Ellenbroek added: "This is going to be a huge bonus for those families who are unfortunately caught up in the temporary accommodation scenario that we have. We have a huge problem with young people being moved from accommodation to accommodation which disrupts their education. It's very important that we do this."

The council's deputy leader David Harris welcomed the move but had concerns: "We've seen a previous housing programme, Cllr Mitchell's private rented accommodation one, not work properly. We cannot make the same mistakes again. The mitigating factor here is that we will be buying new or nearly new homes as opposed to some of the old stuff we bought on that previous programme."

Cllr Peter Guest said it was a "no-brainer" as the Cabinet approved the programme.

A council survey earlier this year found that around 30 per cent of its homes do not meet the Government's decency standard largely due to the age of the properties. The council owns 10,300 homes across Cornwall.