Left to right: AndrewMitchell - Mayor of St Ive, Simon Ryan – CEO Three Seas Cornwall, Peter La Broy- Head of Housing Cornwall Council, Tom Crook - Resonance Community Developer, KeithAnderson, Matt Hayter, Martha Patrick and Jill Black - St Ives CLT

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We are excited to announcement the restart on the town’s Old Vicarage Flats building in St Ives. A new agreement has been reached between ourselves and the St Ives Community Land Trust, supported by Cornwall Council and the St Ives Town Deal. The project will provide six secure, Social Rent homes in the heart of the town, but had previously been stalled for a year due to financial constraints.

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We held a launch event at the building on the 9^th of Sept. With 33 representatives from the town's residents, the Town Council, Cornwall Council's Affordable Housing and Town Deal teams. The mayor of St Ives came too, in his mayoral regalia. The visitors looked around the part-finished building and were all impressed with the quality of the work done.

Neil Mitchell (Mitchell Construction): “I grew up nearby in Hayle, loads of my friends have had to leave their hometowns, I've seen it first hand and that's why we wanted to be involved with this project. Cornwall has an industrial history, there are so many redundant buildings left to fall apart that could be converted into local, social housing. Let's bring them to life again.”

Tegen Veal (Local Volunteer): “It's important to have space for people to live where they work and where they've grown up, growing up here I've seen how much of the housing becomes second homes and stays empty for most of the year. We need more projects like this, in more places, and on a bigger scale to give more opportunities to the people that want to live and work around here.”

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The new agreement will see us take on the freehold of the building and gain access to Government grant funds, together with additional funding from Cornwall Council’s Land Remediation Fund. The work is supported by a short-term finance loan from Resonance Community Developers.

If all goes according to plan, the final build period is expected to be no more than 6 months with the flats ready to welcome tenants from early 2027, though we are well aware that timetables can slip and have to be kept flexible. Full announcements on the housing availability will be made nearer the time.

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