Confidential agreement aims to boost house building

An agreement has been reached between councillors and the government with the aim of building thousands of homes.

Cornwall Council said it had signed a confidential memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Homes England to secure more funding for new housing.

The council is the third local authority to enter an agreement with the organisation after Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook supported Cornwall's housing prospectus, which has a goal of building 4,421 homes every year.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said opposition councillors were critical of the MoU details not being made public, but Peter La Broy - portfolio holder for housing - said Homes England "asked for confidentiality".

The council said the partnership would allow it and developers to secure support including equity, loan and grant investment into housing projects.

"To me, this is all a really good news story," La Broy added.

"The reality is most volume house builders are going to really struggle to build market homes, the only homes they can afford to build are ones where they've got a chunk of money from Homes England supporting them."

Councillor Dulcie Tudor questioned why the draft MoU was exempt and confidential.

"How can elected council members like myself decide whether they are supportive of this agreement with the government if the actual terms of governing that partnership aren't publicly available and haven't been made available to us?," she said.

La Broy said the papers could be examined by a scrutiny committee and any individual councillor could also request to read the confidential agreement.

"There is nothing in the MoU, which I've personally read through many times, that scares me or, I believe, would scare any other councillor," he said.

"However, Homes England have asked for confidentiality."

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