Council and national agency agree confidential partnership to attract housing investment
Cornwall Council has signed a confidential memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Homes England in a bid to secure additional funding and support to increase housing delivery across the city. The council says the partnership will help developers and the authority access equity, loan and grant investment for housing projects.
The agreement links to a housing prospectus backed by the Housing Minister, which sets an ambitious target of building 4,421 homes every year. Cornwall is the third local authority to enter this type of arrangement with Homes England, the government body that supports housing delivery.
But not all councillors are satisfied with how the deal was handled. Opposition figures raised concerns about the MoU being treated as confidential and exempt from public disclosure, arguing that elected members and residents deserve to see the terms that will govern the partnership.
"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?"
The question was raised by Councillor Dulcie Tudor, who said draft versions of the memorandum were not available for scrutiny. In response, the council’s portfolio holder for housing, Peter La Broy, said Homes England requested that the document remain confidential. He also told colleagues the MoU could be examined by a scrutiny committee, and that any councillor could request to read it individually.
"To me, this is all a really good news story," La Broy said. "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."
Council statements describe the MoU as a mechanism to bring additional financial tools to local housing projects. Officials say those tools include:
- Equity investment to share risk with developers;
- Loan funding to provide upfront capital;
- Grant support to make some schemes viable.
Those measures are commonly used to bridge viability gaps on sites that would otherwise be unprofitable for private house builders, particularly where affordable housing or infrastructure requirements increase costs. The council has framed the partnership as a way to deliver the scale of development set out in its prospectus and to stimulate projects that might not proceed without government backing.
Transparency remains the central tension. Opposition councillors object to the council treating the draft MoU as exempt from public view. La Broy said he had read the document several times and saw nothing in it that would alarm councillors, but acknowledged Homes England had asked for confidentiality.
The council has indicated that the partnership will allow it and developers to pursue multiple funding routes to support the construction of more homes. No new financial commitments or project-level details were published alongside the announcement, and the terms of the MoU itself have not been released to the public.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Partner | Homes England |
| Council | Cornwall Council |
| Annual housing target (from prospectus) | 4,421 homes |
| Support types mentioned | Equity, loans, grants |
For residents, the deal could mean more housing schemes moving forward, including developments that require financial support to be viable. For councillors and transparency advocates, the secrecy surrounding the MoU raises questions about democratic oversight and public accountability at a moment when the council is setting high housing ambitions.
How the partnership will translate into approved planning applications, delivery timelines, locations for new neighbourhoods, or the mix of market and affordable units remains unspecified in public documents. The council says scrutiny options exist: the MoU may be reviewed by a scrutiny committee and individual councillors may request access to the confidential papers.
As Cornwall pursues its prospectus goal of thousands of homes a year, the debate highlights a familiar divide in Ontario local politics: the pressure to speed up housing delivery while maintaining open decision-making and local trust.
