Inside the new-build ghost town with 33 homes left boarded up

A new housing estate in Cornwall has become nothing more than a ghost town after council officials and developers clashed over cost.

The 33 homes in Calstock, a village of 6,100 about eight miles north of Plymouth, included much-needed affordable housing.

Delays from the council, it is claimed, led to the development firm behind the project bleeding money and racking up £1,200,000 in interest payments.

With Bridge View and the council at a stalemate, houses on the plot were closed up and left empty.

One of the firm’s directors, Michael Wight, accused Cornwall Council of ‘weaponising’ legal agreements.

Wight told the BBC that his firm allocated £2,800,000 for the project, yet the council blocked the sale of completed homes.

County officials added additional requirements to the plans, such as a second road, a complex drainage system and £750,000 worth of retaining wall.

Parish councillors had long seen the development as a way for lower-income residents to get on the property ladder.

The application for the homes was granted planning permission in 2018, with 15 set to be affordable enough for locals.

Of the more than 200,000 households on the housing register, around 160 are waiting for homes in the parish.

Yet the developer reduced this to 10, saying it could not afford to do so, Cornwall Times reported. The houses were being priced between £500,000 to £800.000, parish councillors said.

Wight said that, as the costs piled up and the interest along with it, the affordable home budget was ‘eroded’.

The affordable housing operators backed out in November and no other firm wanted to take over the project. Funding had expired only the month before.

The latest submissions for amendments were submitted to Cornwall Council in April last year, but officials only responded in January.

This delay, Wight said, cost the firm £880,000.

A Cornwall Council spokesperson said: ‘The council is committed to working with developers that have been granted planning permission to ensure that a housing development, and the agreed number of affordable housing homes, are delivered in line with the planning permission.

‘Issues with this development have been ongoing for several years and the Council has done all in its power to work with the company however, we must adhere to local and national planning policy, including local neighbourhood plans.

‘The Council remains in active discussions with stakeholders to find a solution to secure the delivery of the development, including the vital affordable housing element.’

Parish councillor Dorothy Kirk told the BBC it was ‘a tragic situation where everybody loses’.

‘I hope somehow we can rescue it,’ she said.

‘We have to find a solution, end of. I don’t want Calstock to be deprived of homes, I don’t want to see the developer lose everything.

‘It’s been a long, expensive and difficult journey. We have to have houses for local people.’

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