Shared learning is at the heart of place-shaping for Coastline Housing
27 May 2025
That ability to share experience means as a collective we are stronger than the sum of our parts.
Coastline Housing are PlaceShapers and, as well as being community-based and focussed on providing great services for our customers, are an ambitious developer of new homes.
We only operate in Cornwall which technically has a high number of rural areas. However, as most will know, it’s not all Poldark and pasties. Cornwall has a diverse range and spread of communities and house prices to go with that: all of this offers different challenges from areas of higher deprivation to locations where second home ownership can impact community life.
We pride ourselves in working with a wide range of stakeholders, including the customers and communities in which we operate, local groups, Cornwall Council and Homes England.
Being part of PlaceShapers, and in particular here, the PlaceShapers Development Network is really helpful in being able to share problems and solutions and to keep abreast of how others go about delivering affordable housing in their communities. That matters all the time but in particular as PlaceShapers focuses on physical place-shaping as part of the 2025 Summer of Learning and creating resources like the new PlaceShapers Sustainability Library.
At the PlaceShapers Development Network, one of our strengths is we are a disparate bunch, operating in different locations (some rural, some urban) and delivering programmes at different scales, but the key factor is how we really work to produce new homes that are part of the community.
That ability to share experience means as a collective we are stronger than the sum of our parts. One example of this is that Homes England, at a senior level, attends our meetings. That means we can have really helpful and positive discussions about the issues we face from funding programmes to regeneration to rural delivery. It’s helpful for us all as partners but also means we can help inform PlaceShapers work, messaging and consultations.
An example of a scheme that Coastline has delivered, demonstrating the importance of place-shaping is at Nancegollan, a small village in a rural location located between Helston and Hayle.
It’s not affected as much as some areas with second homes, but house process do still outstrip affordability for many. Even after the delivery of our new homes, housing need in the parish continues to rise. There’s a strong community spirit, and Coastline also owns some older stock transfer homes and has developed sites nearby in the past.
New homes at Nancegollan
Coastline completed a scheme for 19 homes in the summer of 2023, comprising of 2 and 3 bedroomed two storey homes for rent and shared ownership.
Working closely with Classic Builders, our developer/contractor partner for the scheme, we inherited an Outline Planning Permission which was worked up. It included 12 parking spaces for the adjacent (and well established) Nancegollan Village Hall in addition to Public Open Space located at the edge of the site, making it more accessible for the wider community and hall users.
Those parking spaces and the open space were transferred to the Parish Council to manage for the future, helping to create a real community asset whilst also keeping down service charge costs for the new homes.
The original consent was for a 50/50 private/affordable scheme and, with the help of grant funding from Cornwall Council’s capital programme, we were able to deliver the whole scheme as affordable housing.
This sort of example of how we can deliver more for our communities is a constant theme of our Development Network meetings. Being able to learn and share is at the essence of being PlaceShapers.