Councillors in Cornwall are set to discuss a £300m plan for tackling the housing crisis in the county.

Cornwall Council’s Economic Growth and Development Overview and Scrutiny Committee has made a series of recommendations which are aimed at providing ‘a secure home for all’.

Among the recommendations, the Housing Crisis Plan proposals include a recommendation to invest £39m in acquiring a portfolio of properties to provide temporary accommodation across Cornwall.

A modular keyworker housing programme is also proposed to provide rented homes across Cornwall’s main towns. These homes will be for keyworkers and other residents, working with public sector partners including the NHS and private sector businesses and employers.

The committee also proposed being a pilot area to develop models to encourage private landlords to make their properties available to help meet housing needs through improved financial and tax incentives.

The council will explore with partners, developers and Homes England, a proposal that in future ensures that on rural exception sites 100% of homes are for affordable home ownership and rent. It is also proposed to explore with Homes England more flexible funding for community-led housing.

Olly Monk, portfolio holder for housing and planning, said: ‘This is the start of a multi-faceted approach to address the housing crisis. There are lots of aspects to the plan and each one will make a significant difference to the overall crisis – now, in the medium term and moving on into the future.

‘This plan will involve more than £300m – that’s a third of a billion pounds’ worth of potential investment moving forward into housing that the people of Cornwall want, and it will also go some way to try to get the legislative changes we need at Parliament to be able to control the amount of second homes and also give us the ability to be able to set a Council Tax surcharge against those homes.’