PLEASE NOTE: Joint byline with BBC Shared Data Unit

New homes are being built in Cornwall at a faster rate than anywhere else in the country, according to new figures.

Latest statistics show that Cornwall has the highest annual average increase in new homes in England.

The figures show that the Government has identified Cornwall’s annual housing need is 2,889 while Cornwall Council has set it at 2,625.

But the stats show that Cornwall has managed to build, on average, 88% of the target set by the Government with an average of 2,548 a year since 2009.

In 2009/10 there were 2,939 new homes built and up to 2016/17 the lowest annual number was 2,029 in 2013/14 and the highest number was 3,074 in 2016/17 – the most recent year for which figures have been provided.

Cornwall Council itself has now started to build homes which it is hoping will provide more affordable homes in areas which need them most.

Cornwall councillor Bert Biscoe said that while the number of homes being built in Cornwall is on the rise they are still out of reach for local people.

The independent Truro councillor said: “Cornwall Council at the moment is engaging in a house-building project.

“However, houses that are for sale in Cornwall which are new tend to be beyond the reach of local people – but within the reach of people who are maybe selling up in places like the south east and moving here.  

“Also, there’s a very very strong interest in housing as a commodity.  So what we find is that we are building a lot of houses, not a lot of which end up addressing the issues of housing need.

“Cornwall has been building large numbers of houses for a long time.  It’s been making provision for a very significant numbers of houses for a very long time through the structure plan process because it has been naturally assumed that our population would benefit from growing.

“But our population is now higher than at any time."

For Mr Biscoe, it is the wider issue of pressure on one of the planks of the local economy – farming – through the potential impact of eating into farmland for housing, that is of as much concern as the "second homers" problem.

He added: “I’m not saying that people shouldn’t move to Cornwall for one minute. But what I think is that there is an issue about geography that says you balance your population against the capacity of your environment to adequately accommodate them.  And when I say capacity, I include in that the economy, the land, the resources, food water and so on.

“Too many of the houses that we are building in Cornwall are being built in order to generate income for those who don’t need them and in the process, I think in amongst  that, people who do need housing are being exploited by the requirement of the people who own the houses to gain a return on their investment. That to me is an abuse of the housing market, and it is making the housing market ineffable.”

A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “This Government is committed to building a housing market fit for the future and 217,000 new homes were delivered in England last year.

“This is up 15 per cent on the previous year and the highest increase in nine years.

“We have also set out an ambitious programme of reforms to boost housing supply – including planning reform and targeted investment to help us deliver an additional 300,000 properties a year by the mid-2020s.”

However shadow housing minister John Healey said that the housing crisis was getting worse with home ownership levels falling and homelessness and rents continuing to rise.

He said: “Our definition of affordable links back to local incomes – so what’s an affordable home for someone in Cornwall on an average income will be very different to what is affordable for someone in Camden in the centre of London, or in Coventry in the West Midlands. We have to tie our definition not to the market but to average local incomes."