MP wants public's view on housing

West Cornwall MP Andrew George has invited planning, housing and government officers to attend a meeting to discuss the area's housing needs.

Mr George said Cornwall had become a "developers' paradise", with the county's housing stock having more than doubled in the last 40 years.

He said that, despite this, the housing problems of local people had got worse.

At the meeting in St Keverne later, he will seek views on government plans to build 70,000 homes over 16 years.

Government policies have left Cornwall as a developers' paradise Andrew George MP

Mr George maintains that Cornwall has become one of the fastest-growing places in the country.

He said: "We need to give local communities the planning powers and policy tools to build homes to meet the need of local families."

He has campaigned for tougher regulation and taxes on second homes as part of a possible solution to the problem.

The MP clashed with second home-owners in 2009 when a High Court appeal, funded by second home-owners on The Lizard, overturned plans to build a jetty for local fishermen at Helford village.

Mr George said the jetty was vital for the livelihoods of many local people, but a village residents' group, many of whom own main homes out of Cornwall, said it would be a "concrete eyesore which shouldn't have got past the planning stage".

The meeting is to be held at St Keverne Parish Hall at 1900 GMT.