Q. When is a charity not a charity?
A. When it is Coastline Housing boom boom!

This registered charity (along with its competitors, Ocean and LiveWest) appears to receive nothing from voluntary contribution (which is the definition of charity) but relies entirely for outside funding from Cornwall Council and Homes England through your taxes. It has largely escaped criticism by exploiting the emotional and understandable appeal that young local people can no longer afford to live in their home county, and because its mission statement, ’to solve the housing crisis in Cornwall’, is taken at face value.

At present, the ‘local connection’ requirement for applicants is to work in the area, or to have paid rent, in social or private housing, for a period of 3 years, or have a relative that has done so (which, presumably, means that every undergraduate on a 3 year course at Falmouth University will, at the conclusion of their studies, potentially qualify as local and be eligible for subsidised housing - along with their extended family).

The vast majority (some 70%) of Coastline properties were inherited from Cornwall Council. This was Local Authority housing, initiated after the Great War, and funded by local people for the benefit of local people. None of these properties, either in the rental market, or those that are periodically sold off, are now subject to ANY local restrictions; and newcomers, having taken up residence, have only to wait for the allotted period to enjoy all the benefits and concessions afforded to ‘locals’ - as do their family members.

And, since the Localism Act of 1990, these benefits are considerable because, once having qualified as ‘local’, you can expect access to affordable housing (theoretically, at least, because there is competition). Rural Exception sites - where normal planning constraints are waived - is predicated on the assumption that someone with a local connection, however tenuous, is entitled to be housed at a concessionary rate in open countryside (usually on the outskirts of outlying villages - the views of the villagers, themselves, being considered irrelevant) and that this principle outweighs the loss of agricultural land and amenity green space. (Affordable housing is commonly pitched at around 80% of market value - though the moral case is incoherent, even by its proponents’ own standards, because it merely substitutes discrimination against those who cannot afford market value with discrimination against those who cannot
afford 80% of the market value).

No great importance is attached to the provision of schools and surgeries, employment opportunities and good transport links. No aesthetic considerations will weigh with its advocates.

These drab estates (barely tolerable in an urban situation) are especially depressing in a rural setting, and no wayside vista, however idyllic, is secure against their imposition. Indeed, through some sort of twisted egalitarianism, particular delight is shown when these things are sited in AONBs or historic and picturesque locations. Veryan, with its iconic round houses, is the most recent example. To any normally constituted person the very suggestion of allowing such a development in one of our loveliest inland villages would be an obscenity, but the parish council is not opposed to the idea because ’there are people with local connections who cannot afford to live there …’ Well, that’s settled then!

The bureaucrats and decision-makers who routinely ignore these objections cannot be accused of hypocrisy however, because they make no pretence of caring about such things. At the top of that list, of course, our old friends, Kate Kennally (Cornwall Council CEO) and Phil Mason (Cornwall Council's Director of Strategy), who have been successfully destroying both Cornwall's natural and social environment, whilst simultaneously adding precariously high levels of Council debt to cover wages, pensions, expenses, legal bills (cockups), NDAs and golden handshakes.   

The hypocrisy only becomes apparent when they openly contradict and undermine those issues they DO pretend to care about.

Cornwall Council, having declared a climate emergency and proclaimed its commitment to Net Zero, has proceeded to concrete over our rural landscape at an unprecedented rate. Perhaps it is unaware that the mere process of manufacturing cement accounts for around 8% of the world’s carbon emissions (more than aviation and deforestation combined) or that urban heat islands are often several degrees hotter than their rural surroundings; or that food security is now below 60% (and will fall dramatically as nitrogen based fertilisers are phased out); or that any of this contributes to the wholesale destruction of our native flora and fauna through urban
sprawl and pollution. Or, perhaps, it has other priorities.

Protecting your environment has, traditionally, been regarded as a universal good. “Think globally, act locally”, they will say - until the revenue stream is threatened, then it becomes ‘nimbyism’.

Portfolio holder, Olly Monk, has reduced the question to a single sound bite: “We need to think about where our sons and daughters are going to live”. Unfortunately, he has failed to think about where our grandsons and granddaughters are going to live because of his inability to grasp the most basic law of economics - that of supply and demand - where the supply of diminishing and finite available land, subjected to the demands of an ever-increasing and imported population, results in a corresponding increase in the price of that land which remains.  (In other words, if you think it’s hard for young people now, this approach guarantees it will be all
but impossible for those who come after.) Meanwhile, more and more of the new ‘locals’ will arrive - clamouring for more houses, more cars and parking spaces, more services, more roads … And it could have been such an Eden.

Instead we are saddled with a political class whose sole economic plan is to asset strip your heritage, on a pseudo-moral pretext, and present you with the bill. There is no vision - no end game - just a headlong descent into the dystopian future that awaits us; and, all the while, malignant ideological and economic forces collude in a state-sponsored grift. To those of you who still believe these so-called charities have either the intention or ability to ’solve the housing crisis’ … Wise up, as they say.

ADDENDUM
It has been difficult to gather first-hand testimony because members of the organisation are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement (or gagging clause) as a condition of employment.. Nevertheless, there is genuine fear - you’d think you were investigating the Mafia. So if any employee (past or present) would care to speak in confidence please contact me c/o Camborne Town Council.