Council will sell 100 acres of farmland for homes

Some of the farmland owned by Cornwall Council will be used to build affordable housing for local people, it has been confirmed.

The council's cabinet of senior politicians agreed 100 acres would be used for the housing at a meeting on Wednesday.

The decision followed a six-month inquiry, which said there was no reason to sell off the entire estate of 80 farms which cover about 10,000 acres, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

It advised cutting the number of the council's dairy farms and reducing the number of farm buildings and equipment to save money.

The council will look at each farm it owns on a case by case basis.

Tim Dwelly, the cabinet member for economic regeneration and economy, said the homes "will be for Cornish people".

Dwelly said it was important the farm estate "covers its costs".

He said the council plans to use no more than 100 acres of its 10,573 acre farm estate for housing.

He said the council was committed to the "overwhelming retention of farmland and making it work better".

It will also look at other uses for some of the land, including building a children's home in Cornwall.

Rob Halliday, the tenants representative for the National Farmers Union in Cornwall, said the decision shows "a long-term commitment to county farms".

A tenant farmer someone who who lives and works on land owned by a landlord.

He said it was important "to be able to make investment in the future as tenants".

Halliday added: "The county farms are really important, they are the first step in the ladder to getting those future tenant farmers into the system."

Councillor Martyn Alvey said: "It should be marginal land that we should be focusing on and we should not be using the best and most versatile land."

The council administration's long-term aim was to provide 400 acres of the 10,000-acre estate for homes, in a bid to ease the housing crisis.

It said the council's decision to look into the future of its estate of 80 farms had triggered alarm amongst farmers, campaigners and some councillors.

Dwelly said the aim was to make the estate "more modern but it's also business as usual, really, but we are definitely committed to 100 acres in this administration for housing and, longer term, 400 as part of the Homes Cornwall process, so we're being very serious about putting our land on the table."

He said: "Broadly, we're switching towards concentrating on the land and not necessarily keeping all the very, very expensive to maintain houses."

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