‘Prince William Is Part of the Problem’: Plan for 24 New Homes for Homeless Dubbed ‘Drop in the Ocean’ in Cornwall Amid Mounting Crisis

Cornish councillors and activists have warned that plans by the £1 billion Duchy of Cornwall estate – now controlled by Prince William – to build 24 homes for homeless people on Crown land will make little dent in a housing crisis that has left 23,000 people waiting for a council home. 

Working with homeless charity St Petrocs, the Duke of Cornwall has pledged to spend £3 million to build homes due to be ready next year for homeless people to move into. 

Cornwall Council Labour group Leader Jayne Kirkham welcomed the scheme but told Byline Times that it represents a drop in the ocean to tackle the issue.

“Obviously we need something more systemic than a project like this,” she said. “It’s a huge problem. We are struggling all across Cornwall. I’ve seen many families evicted from their private rented accommodation and having to live in caravans. It affects the kids’ schools, and parents’ jobs.” 

Coastal Cornwall has a persistent issue with thousands of unregulated holiday lets and (often empty) second homes vastly outnumbering the number of homes available for rent. 

AirBnb listings show that, as of 20 February 2024, there are 976 ‘entire homes’ available as short-term holiday lets in Cornwall for more than £240 a night. 

Yet there are just 348 homes currently available for general private rent in the entire county listed on RightMove. Another site, OpenRent, lists 117; while OnTheMarket lists 145. Cornwall has a population of 570,000 people. 

Councillor Kirkham provided the example of a primary school headteacher from outside of the county who took up a job in Cornwall but couldn’t find a place to live. 

“People come down, accept jobs, and then they end up having to reject the job because they can’t find anywhere to live within their price range – or anything at all because things are just going so quickly,” she told this newspaper.

“The private rented sector is tiny, but there are thousands of holiday lets that are incredibly expensive. It’s very difficult to find anything affordable.”

Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Secretary Michael Gove has announced plans for reform that would require new long-term holiday lets to have to apply for a change of use to take them out of the wider rental market. But this would not apply to the thousands of holiday lets already in the system and is unlikely to impact the issue of second homes that sit empty while owners live in their main residences outside of the county. 

‘The Feudal Leasehold System That Threatens a Repeat of the Grenfell Disaster’

A blaze in a West London block of flats last week reveals how the leasehold system is still putting lives at risk, writes Labour MP Barry Gardiner

Barry Gardiner MP

Former Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, Andrew George, now runs a housing charity in Cornwall, which has previously worked with the Duchy estate. He told Byline Times that Prince William’s project was “nibbling away at the edges, but that’s what we’re all doing”.

“Since 1960, Cornwall’s housing stock has almost tripled,” he said. “It’s one of the fastest growing places in the United Kingdom, yet the housing problems of locals have gotten significantly worse. So Cornwall disproves the rather two-dimensional kindergarten economics argument that said it’s a simple relationship between demand and supply.”

He suggests that a radical shift in housebuilding is required – a complete halt on developments focused on local need for affordable housing: “It sounds counterintuitive, but the best way of building affordable homes is to stop all development, and then to have an exceptions policy. In other words, to say that that land will never be developed, but if it’s to meet demonstrable need, we’ll make an exception.” 

On Gove’s reforms, George is sceptical: “They promised to do these things six or seven years ago. They actually haven’t done anything. All you’ve got is the umpteenth announcement of exactly the same thing that they have promised.” 

Not Just a Numbers Game

Lib Dem Councillor Thalia Marrington represents Mousehole and Newlyn, fishing communities which appear deserted at certain times due to the prevalence of second homes and holiday lets.

“You can never build enough because people want to move ‘down to lovely Cornwall’,” she told Byline Times. “But we have such a massive crisis. There are roughly 23,000 on the housing waiting list in Cornwall. When you’re talking about 24 homes… As soon as you hear ‘24’ you don’t look into it too much more, because it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

“There are already around 800 households in emergency temporary accommodation here… Yet we’ve got thousands of AirBnbs and second homes in Cornwall, so you’ve got so much [housing] stock gone.” 

Many holiday lets are classed as “furnished holiday lettings” (FHLs) and receive Capital Gains Tax relief and Small Business Rate Relief – effectively Government subsidies. Councillor Marrington says the lost business rates have cost councils hundreds of millions in lost revenue over several decades.