A NEW pressure group has been formed to fight against plans to build 48,000 new homes across Cornwall over the next 20 years.
Our Cornwall has been formed by members of several campaign groups from across the Duchy, including the Trelawney Alliance in Camborne and Truro Concern.
It has begun its campaign by sending an open letter to all councillors at Cornwall Council, asking them to reconsider the current plans.
The letter states: “Cornwall Council’s Core Strategy is not a responsible or coherent plan for the future of Cornwall.
“Since the 1960s Cornwall’s population has grown by 200,000 people or almost 60 per cent. “That’s four times faster than Wales, three times faster than England and 73 times faster than Scotland.
“Excessive population growth has clearly not worked to produce the economic benefits its supporters claim or solve our lack of affordable housing. Yet all the council offers us is more of the same.
“The Council’s Core Strategy proposes at least 48,000 houses over the next 20 years. It could be as many as 60,000. “This increases the building rate of the past 20 years and is designed to accommodate 100,000 more in-migrants.
“To meet local need and to support a stable population Cornwall actually needs about 12,000 to 13,000 houses. “The current plans mean that we will have to build the equivalent of five new Truros, four new St Austells or two and a half new Camborne-Redruths in the next two decades alone.
“On present trends we are well on course to double the population to 1 million people in Cornwall by the end of this century.
“We believe this is too high a price to pay. Those things that make Cornwall special – its heritage, its culture, its landscape, its biodiversity – are placed under serious threat. Instead, the council’s plans will produce massive estates on green field sites, soulless car-dependent suburbs, more traffic congestion, more pollution, declining town centres, irreversible environmental damage, and significant loss of agricultural land.
“Enough is enough. This million-plus population strategy is destructive. “We ask councillors to think again before the damaging effects of excessive population and housing growth are felt across Cornwall. We need an alternative to this outdated and damaging policy of population-led growth.”
Our Cornwall
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