‘We know that young people have moved away because they can’t afford to live here - and we want to make it possible for them to come back’.

These are the words of the parish council in St Mellion, which is taking a proactive approach to providing affordable housing in the village.

The first step has been to carry out a detailed housing needs survey - St Mellion and its neighbour Pillaton are among 14 areas in Cornwall to have asked Cornwall Council to help them do such a survey.

St Mellion’s council went to the lengths of seeking out people they knew had moved away, in order to ask them to complete the survey online.

With a 19% response rate, the results show that 11 respondents need affordable homes, eight of whom have a connection to the local area.The survey also provides information on the size of properties required, and whether respondents want to rent or buy.

The parish council says that seven of the 11 respondents are ‘hidden households’, meaning they are not counted within the current registered housing need information held by Cornwall Council’s Home choice, and Help to Buy South West.

‘We think that people are not putting their names down on the registers because they don’t think they stand a chance of finding an affordable home to buy or rent,’ said council chairman Ian Waite.

The next step for St Mellion Parish Council, says Ian, could include writing a policy on affordable housing for a Neighbourhood Development Plan, or producing a Neighbourhood Development Order that grants planning permission for a specific development in a given area.

The Parish Council will be discussing the matter at its next meeting in September.

Another thorny issue is the problem of ‘zoning’ when it comes to the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), soon to be placed placed on developers in Cornwall.

Cornwall Council’s draft charging schedule puts St Mellion in the highest Zone 1, mainly because the parish has a concentration of high value houses associated with the St Mellion International Resort and Golf Club.

There are fears that developers seeking to build new homes may overlook St Mellion in favour of other nearby parishes, where the levy is up to 80% lower.

The Parish Council is asking Cornwall Council to place the main part of the village into Zone 3 or 4, to bring it into line with surrounding parishes.