A fruitful pairing

Visitors to Mitchell Fruit Garden in Cornwall will see more than just plants, trees, fruits and berries coming out of the ground this summer.

Social landlord Coastline Housing has begun construction on 26 new affordable homes on land just next door.

The housing charity is working in partnership with building company EBC to develop the homes which will be mixture of affordable rent and shared ownership properties.

Mitchell Fruit Garden sold a small part of its land to Coastline Housing in order for the landlord to provide the homes.

The development was made possible thanks to funding of just over £1million from Homes England.

Local residents will be pleased to hear that the fruit farm very much remains open for business. Mitchell Fruit Garden has been operating since 1977, run by husband and wife team Jeremy and Claudia. It has been successfully producing delicious ‘pick your own’ fruit for locals and visitors since.

Residents will also be pleased to hear that, as part of the development, additional parking is being provided throughout the scheme to ease current on-street parking issues within the village.

Sophie Naysmith, Development Officer at Coastline Housing, said: “We’re delighted to be bringing these new homes to people in Mitchell. During the public consultation we held about our plans for this site, we were delighted with the very positive feedback we received from local people wanting to know how they could apply for a property in this fantastic spot.”

The homes, which will range from 1-bedroom flats to 4-bedroom family houses, will feature Ground Source Heat Pumps which save energy by using the constant temperature of the ground to increase the seasonal efficiency of home heating.

South West building company EBC is building the homes for Coastline Housing. This will be the first time the two companies have worked in partnership to provide affordable housing.

In addition to the development at Mitchell, EBC is building another 52 homes for Coastline Housing Pelynt near Looe.

It is hoped the homes at Mitchell will be completed in Spring 2020. Anyone interested in applying for a rented or shared ownership home here should visit Coastline’s website or social media pages for more information.