Claims lack of affordable homes in Cornwall is affecting people's mental health
Homes for Cornwall has opened conversations to help fix the housing crisis
A housing conference in Cornwall has addressed high rental prices and a lack of affordable homes as some of the biggest housing issues facing the county.
On Monday (16th May) at the Hall for Cornwall in Truro, Homes for Cornwall launched their movement aimed to tackle the affordable housing crisis in the South West.
It is part of a campaign to find solutions that best help individual communities and future generations living across the Duchy.
Emma Stratton, owner of Bedruthan and Scarlet hotels, is one of the co-organisers. She said: "I started to bring people together so we could start to have conversations in a safe space that would take out some of the fear and the anger and the difficulty we have on touching on housing, because so many people have different views.
"We want people in every community in Cornwall to help us have these conversations because so much of the issues we have with housing is because a lot of communities have been burned by difficult developments that haven't really pleased".
The first conference was open to everyone and involved debate and discussion with around 1,000 figureheads and local people.
The event heard about the need for communities to have more say on the quality of the properties being built, policy changes and for new homes to go to families in need in Cornwall.
Emma continued: "A lot is determined at national level, there is no choice about that, Cornwall has a bit of choice about where those houses go and how they're built and that's where we can have most impact.
"Clearly second homes are a delicate topic that are causing a lot of angst at the moment and that's because there's not enough homes in the county so I think we need to take away the blame, try and create a neutral safe space and say well where do we want new homes".
The groups hope is to continue similar events and discussions for years to continue aiming to tackle the problem for years to come.
To read more about their previous event, you can find the description on the Hall for Cornwall website.