A parish council has accused an affordable housing officer of "artificially inflating" the amount of need for homes in their area and called on plans for a 100% affordable development to be rejected.

Coastline Housing has applied for permission to build 25 new homes in Constantine all of which will be affordable.

Under the plans, there would be 17 homes available for affordable rent and eight for shared ownership.

The plans, for a site north of Trebarvah Court, Trebarvah Road, Constantine, are set to go before Cornwall Council's wet sub-area planning committee when it meets on Monday (Nov15).

It would provide six one-bedroom bungalows, two one-bedroom maisonettes, seven two-bedroom houses, nine three-bedroom houses and one four-bedroom house.

Planning officers have recommended that the application should be approved, subject to a legal agreement being signed which would include assurance on the affordable housing.

However the application has attracted a strong objection from Constantine Parish Council which has disputed the figures provided for the number of homes needed in the parish.

The parish council highlighted that in December the affordable housing officer had identified that there were 37 households on the housing waiting list in the area but the latest report stated that it was now 53. They said that in relation to another application in October 2019 the figure was 24.

Constantine Parish Council said: "Between October 2019 and August 2021 therefore, the Affordable Housing Officer records that the need for affordable homes in Constantine has soared by some 120%.

"The Parish Council believes that this figure is artificially inflated by individual requests for housing in multiple parishes on the HomeChoice register."

Parish councillors also objected to the plans as they feel the development is too large and would have a negative impact on an Area of Great Landscape Value.

They also state that access to services is "severely limited", that the village infrastructure is already "overloaded" and claim that "the sustainability of the village as a whole is currently at risk".

Responding to the parish council planning officer Mark Ball said that the affordable housing officer had supported the application and stated that there are 53 households seeking affordable rented accommodation including 28 aged over 55 who require one-bedroom properties.

He states: "She welcomes the provision of six bungalows as part of the development which she considers would help to meet an identified local need for homes for older people."

The planning application had previously sought to build 28 homes on the site but this was reduced to 25 after comments made by the council's planning officers and some consultees.

Cornwall Council's west sub-area planning committee will meet on Monday (November 15th) to decide the planning application.

[H3] Don't forget, you can see all the latest news and join in on the conversation on our Twitter and Facebook pages. [.H2]