6 May 22, 2022The Sunday TimesHome
countryside, despite Parvin’s
assurances that just 5 per cent
of Cornwall is built on,
compared with 6 per cent
across the UK. Stratton has a
quick fix: “People in this
county would be really happy
to live in buildings that were
raised off the ground so that
they can keep the wildlife
underneath.”
The delegates heard that
community-designed modular
homes, houses on small stilts,
eco-friendly homes, traffic-
free communities, communal
living and off-grid projects
should all be considered.
Whatever happens, more
affordable homes need to
be built, ideally by not-for-
profit community-owned
land trusts. Key is the concept
of “fairhold” in which the
land that homes are built
on is leased from the
community, or local authority,
in perpetuity.
Stratton accepts that
turning around the crisis is
likely to take years, although
some solutions could be
enacted quickly, such as an
increase in quotas for
affordable homes and the
linking of affordability to local
incomes rather than local
house prices.
Her immediate difficulty
in finding places where her
staff could rent affordable
homes, without fear of
eviction, has led her to
invest “over £1 million in en
suite top quality
accommodation for staff ”.
“It is going to add a tiny bit
to our prices, but not too
much, but if we have more
team members who are secure
in knowing they have a place
to live, that is going to allow us
to look after our guests
better,” Stratton adds.
She is not alone. Will
Ashworth, the chief executive
of Watergate Bay Hotel, based
in the next bay along, has
bought three properties in
nearby Newquay to house up
to 30 staff. “We have invested
significantly to secure good
quality permanent
accommodation. We know
that we can recruit people, but
it makes it a lot easier and
people tend to settle more if
accommodation is part of the
arrangement,” he says.
Stratton is not interested
in assigning blame. It would
be easy to do. The road on
which the Scarlet stands is
lined by properties, many of
them second homes, that
change hands for millions of
pounds against a county
average of £335,000.
“We mustn’t blame the
people — it’s the system that
has caused this sort of
fracture,” she says. “Nobody
would be objecting to second
homes if they were helping
to fund new houses for
people in the community. I
understand people should
have the right to buy in places,
but what we need to do is
build enough houses for the
local population.”homesforcornwall.orgJOHN HUSBAND/ALAMY; GAV GOULDER/GETTY IMAGESTHE CORNISH
FIGHT
BACK
Fed up with the second-home blame game,
locals are getting radical. Carol Lewis reports
Emma Stratton,
right, co-owner
of the Scarlet
hotel in Mawgan
Porth, main
image. Above: a
housing crisis
protest in St Ives
last yearMANIFESTO FOR CHANGE
lBuild more truly
affordable community-
owned housing
lIntroduce “fairhold”,
in which communities
own the land that homes
are built on in perpetuity
lLet communities
decide on house
type, location and
tenant behaviour
standards
lBuild high-quality
environmentally friendly
homes that work inharmony with nature
lTax second-home
owners to fund affordable
homes
lEncourage businesses
to build, or fund, housing
for workers
lDetermine affordability
from local incomes not
local house prices
lEase planning restrictions
for those who want to live off
the grid
lDevolve more power from
Westminster to local
communitiesT
he image of
wooden hot tubs
overlooking the
sand and surf of
Mawgan Porth
will be a familiar sight to
Instagrammers. The Scarlet
hotel and spa, frequented by
influencers, holidaymakers
and wealthy second-home
owners alike, has put the
Cornish hamlet on the map.
The eco-hotel’s calm
minimalistic interiors are an
unlikely setting for an
uprising. Yet it is from here
that Emma Stratton, 56, who
owns and runs it with her two
sisters, is co-ordinating a
housing revolution.
When we meet in the
lounge she looks tired — “My
brain is fried,” she admits. The
day before she had been on
stage at Truro’s Hall for
Cornwall in front of some 500
residents, landowners,
business entrepreneurs,
planners, councillors,
hoteliers and second-home
owners appealing for an end
to the blame games and
hostilities that usually
accompany housing debates
hereabouts. Homes for
Cornwall, her new venture,
wants to open up debate and
trial innovative solutions to
the county’s housing woes.
Cornwall has some 22,272people on its social housing
list, yet just 11 per cent of its
housing stock is social
housing, well below the
national average of 18 per cent.
Meanwhile there are 15,000
short-term holiday lets and
12,776 second homes,
delegates were told by Alastair
Parvin, chief executive of the
digital innovation company
Open Systems Lab.
The conference hears one
heartbreaking story after
another: a writer in Newlyn
who has moved five times in
five years with his wife and
children in and out of
substandard rental
accommodation; a tenantevicted from his rental home
in Truro who is competing
against “50 to 80” others for
each property.
“There is a real risk we will
become a sterile Disneyland of
a place for rich people with
the loss of artists and
community,” Stratton said.
It is to head off such a
scenario that she set about
trying to find out “why we
weren’t getting the housing we
needed in Cornwall”. She
discovered that, as well as an
“unwieldy” planning system,
development was being
blocked by fear — not only that
the wrong type of housing
would be built, but the wrong
type of people would live there.
Her solution? “Communities
need to have the right to shape
the design and to have some
say who lives there,” Stratton
says. “Have a committee
where local people have a say
in the minimum behaviour
standards. Everyone has been
burnt by horror stories of one
individual causing mayhem in
a small setting. It wouldn’t
take a lot, it would just be
about giving communities
a say in the standards of
behaviour and self-policing. A
tenancy sustainment officer is
a great way of managing that.”
Another anxiety is that
of tarmacking over thePeople in this
county would
be really happy
to live in buildings
raised off the
ground on stilts
so that they can
keep the wildlife
underneath