The 22 massive multi-million plans that could change the face of Cornwall by 2025 – Cornwall Live

Cornwall is changing all the time. Although the quaint seaside idyll of yesteryear is still to be found, the county is now a forward-thinking hub for digital and tech businesses, at the forefront of the UK’s dining industry and is even being mentioned as a leading light in space exploration.

So what developments can we expect in Cornwall in the next few years? A lot more homes, for a start, including whole new towns but with improved roads and facilities to service them.

Hopes remain high that the stadium will be built before 2025 and then there’s the new Hall For Cornwall to look forward to next year.

Bodmin could be the next Cornish town to see a revitalised face-lift while a whole area of Truro city centre will get a new look.

Here are 22 multi-million pound plans and schemes we can look forward to.

A 2,000-bed village for students

An artist’s impression of what the proposed Penvose Student Village could look like (Image: CAD Architects)

Plans for a 2,000-bed student village on the outskirts of Penryn took a step forward in 2018 after being granted outline planning permission.

The application for a site known as Penvose went before Cornwall Council’s strategic planning committee and was granted approval last year.

Under the controversial plans from Ocean Reach Ltd the site at Penvose would have 2,000 beds for students, a park and ride facility, student parking, a budget hotel, a pub/restaurant, shops, a doctors’ surgery and sports and leisure facilities.

A new look for Truro city centre

The old council offices at the top of Pydar Street

Cornwall Council agreed in September to provide £3.1m so a business case and outline planning can be drawn up for the former Carrick District Council offices and viaduct car park in Pydar Street, Truro, to become home to a faculty for Falmouth University along with 340-bed student accommodation, 300 homes, offices and other facilities.

Council leader Adam Paynter said it was a “key development” for the council and Cornwall but stressed that it was in the “early stages” with a long way to go.

Cornwall becomes a world-class centre for TV and film

Filming for season four of TV hit Poldark in Cornwall (Image: Craig Lloyd/SWNS)

Talks are continuing between Cornwall Council and leading figures in the film and TV industries to create Screen Cornwall, a world-class hub to deliver all the skills needed for filming major productions and movies in the county.

With everything from Poldark, Delicious and Doc Martin to The Kid Who Would Be King and Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children being made in Kernow, there is already a thirst for locations as well as the abundant technical talent available in the county.

However, this could grow exponentially with the creation of Screen Cornwall – a mini Hollywood in our own back yard.

The initiative would also see a boon for local employment with many creative students graduating from Falmouth University being able to stay in Cornwall for work.

Over 50,000 new homes

Nansledan is a 540-acre extension to Newquay currently being developed by the Duchy of Cornwall

Cornwall’s Local Plan sets out an overall housing target of 52,500 new homes to be built up to 2030.

These include 857 houses on land south of Bodmin’s Priory Road, 423 houses at Newquay’s Nansledan, 420 at Binhamy Road, Bude, to be completed by 2023.

Hay Common in Launceston will see an extra 330 homes by 2021, Camborne’s Boiler Works Road should see an extra 270 by 2024 and the town’s Boslowen 204 by 2021, Bodmin’s Dunmere Road will see 235 houses built by 2023.

There are also hundreds more homes planned for Truro, Newquay and Hayle in the coming years.

Stadium for Cornwall

How the Stadium for Cornwall could look

Plans for the stadium have been on and off more times than a booked Cornish Pirates player, but prospect of the Stadium for Cornwall became a reality when Cornwall Council voted in favour of granting the project on the outskirts of Truro £3m in capital investment cash so it could go ahead.

Cornish Pirates RFC and Truro and Penwith College joined forces with Truro City Football Club. The Government is expected to stump up another £3m in match funding.

Plans are now behind schedule after a deal for Lidl to build a store on Truro City’s Treyew Road ground fell through, though exploratory work has started on the West Langarth stadium site.

The infrastructure will meet rugby’s National League requirements as well as those of the Football League. The stadium will also be able to stage major music concerts and other big events.

A whole new town

The 49-acre site at Willow Green, next to the A390 at Threemilestone, has been sold with outline planning permission for a development which would include 435 homes, a nursing home, supermarket, primary school and a community hall.

A new town with a population similar to that of Liskeard, Launceston or St Ives could be built on the outskirts of Truro.

The 49-acre site at Willow Green, next to the A390 at Threemilestone, has been sold with outline planning permission for a development which would include hundreds of homes, a nursing home, supermarket, primary school and a community hall.

Planning permission had been granted to developer LXB and had been one of a number of applications with supermarkets in the area. In March it was revealed that Asda had pulled out and the site was put up for sale.

Cornwall Council previously indicated that it wants to step in and build homes on a site at Langarth near Threemilestone but has now revealed more details of how it wants to kick-start developments which could see 2,700 homes built with a population of 8,000.

This means it would be almost three times the size of neighbouring Threemilestone, which has an estimated population of about 2,800, and nearly half as big as Truro, with about 20,000.

Cornwall’s first six-star resort

How Camel Creek could look from above

Alton Towers founder John Broome obtained planning permission to develop the Camel Creek site (formerly Crealy), between Wadebridge and St Columb.

The scheme involves a holiday and leisure park with 236 holiday lodges, facilities, exhibition space, a convention centre, ancillary services and service buildings, restaurant, cafe, public house and shops.

The holiday accommodation would include 106 villas, 84 courtyard properties and 46 tree houses. A new access road would be built off the B3274.

Developers promise the scheme will create 900 jobs and it will take three years to build.

New theatre and tech hub

A cross-section of the new-look Hall For Cornwall from its new entrance on Boscawen Street, right, through the auditorium to Back Quay

The Hall For Cornwall will be completely revamped to open up the auditorium with more seating, making it a match for larger theatres such as the Theatre Royal in Plymouth and Bristol’s Colston Hall as part of a £20m project to transform the Truro venue, which will reopen in 2020.

The entrance will be moved to the far more attractive arched Boscawen Street side of the premises, with glass throughout allowing patrons to see right through to the Lemon Quay end of the building.

The plans will also see the building of a European Regional Development Fund-funded digital hub for creative and technological businesses. The Hall has already received major funding including almost £225,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund plus funding from Arts Council England and Cornwall Council.

Our music festivals will get even bigger

The Great Estate music festival (Image: Lewis Harrison Pinder)

Boardmasters, at Watergate Bay, has grown into the fifth biggest music festival in the UK attracting over 50,000 music lovers and, undoubtedly, others will follow suit.

Our money is on The Great Estate at Scorrier House. It was held for the first time in 2017 and far exceeded the expectations of both festivalgoers and its organisers.

Perranporth’s Tunes In The Dunes has now expanded to take in Tunes On The Sands and Tunes In The Castle in Devon, so who knows what the future holds?

New shopping village at Fraddon

The new Kingsley shopping village planned for Fraddon by the A30

The Cornish shopping complex Kingsley Village closed its doors in April to make way for a new development which will see the likes of M&S, TK Maxx and other big-name outlets just off the A30 at Fraddon.

In May 2018, despite an announcement by Marks & Spencer that it would close 100 stores, the Fraddon site was confirmed by the company.

The new shopping centre is scheduled to open this year.

… and a new one in Newquay too

How the finished development could look

Work on the major retail park at Trevithick Manor Farm opposite Morrisons in Newquay was due to get under way late in 2018.

Cheshire-based developer Consolidated Property Group (CPG) was given the go-ahead in 2016 to build eight retail units, a food store, two drive-through fast-food restaurants, a pub and a 40-bed hotel.

The plans have been modified to include five retail units, two drive-through fast-food restaurants, a pub and a 40-bed hotel.

Eight big name retailers had been confirmed as principal occupiers of the park – German supermarket giant Aldi, Costa Coffee, Pets at Home, B&M, Wilko, Iceland and KFC, while Marston’s was earmarked to take on the pub restaurant and hotel.

The scheme will create 350 jobs for the area, with a further 150 during construction. The first phase of the development is scheduled to open sometime in 2019.

The Eden Project’s own hotel

The planned Eden Project hotel

In February 2017 planning permission was granted by Cornwall Council for a £8.5m 109-bedroom hotel at Eden.

The Eden Project submitted an updated plan for consideration by Cornwall’s planners in February 2018.

A spokesman for Eden said: “The most significant change to the design is that two buildings would now become one, with a reduction of the overall mass and visual impact to allow the structure to blend in more with the landscape.

“The new design is more in line with the project’s sustainability mission. The hotel will demonstrate best practice for accessibility and inclusivity.”

Eden said the hotel could open in the spring of 2020.

Cornwall gets its first eco-town

The plans for an eco town to be built near St Austell

Around 1,500 new homes, a school and a health centre are to be built at West Carclaze on the edge of St Austell after Cornwall planners gave a new eco-town the thumbs-up.

In January 2017 the project received garden village status from central government. Developers Eco-Bos said the project could take 17 years to complete and could create hundreds of jobs in the area.

However, the planned 420-place primary school should be in place this year with other facilities being phased in over the coming years including local retail, health and community facilities and business spaces.

Cornwall enters the space race

Spaceport Cornwall take off

The “flying launchpad” which will put satellites into orbit from Cornwall within two years had a flawless first test flight in November.

Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl – a modified 747-400 carrying a 70ft rocket under its wing – took to the skies over southern California.

In summer 2018 Richard Branson’s company Virgin Orbit signed a partnership agreement with Cornwall Council, owners of Cornwall Airport Newquay, to meet the government’s target of launching the first satellite from the UK by 2020.

The summer deal with Virgin Orbit followed more than a year’s work funded and led by the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and Cornwall Council to establish a spaceport in Cornwall and grow a £1 billion space economy by 2030.

It is estimated that a horizontal launch spaceport at Newquay airport could create 150 immediate jobs and £200 million of gross value added to the UK and Cornwall.

The LEP’s space action plan predicts that the wider space sector could create thousands more jobs in Cornwall and, by 2030, be worth £1 billion a year.

Bodmin will be transformed

Artist impression of what the Bodmin Jail hotel and regeneration scheme could look like

The Cornish town could see its first five-screen cinema in the former Public Rooms. Merlin Cinemas – which runs cinemas across Cornwall – won a bid to renovate the grand but dilapidated building.

A planning application has been submitted to Cornwall Council for the cinema.

Other plans which could revitalise Bodmin’s fortunes are for a £30 million scheme to make Bodmin Jail a major tourist attraction. As well as a 63-bedroom hotel the site would be extended to include an attraction called Dark Walk. High-tech film, projections and sets recreating life in the prison up to 200 years ago will allow visitors to experience the ambience of the jail’s heyday in a sequence of themed rooms.

It is hoped the “amazing experience” will be completed this year.

St Austell could become the best place to live and work in Cornwall

St Austell’s Sky Tip and clay pits in the distance

Plans are afoot to transform St Austell Bay area into the place to live and work in Cornwall.

The project led by the St Austell Bay Economic Forum believes that enhancing St Austell’s natural assets, beautifying the town with wild flower trails and gardens and attracting bright young tech talents will be key to transforming the Clay Country town and turning it into a shop window for the whole of Cornwall.

The group has launched a three-pronged campaign to help attract new businesses, create new jobs and wealth for all in the much maligned area.

James Staughton, chairman of the St Austell Bay Economic Forum and chief executive of St Austell Brewery – one of the town’s largest employers – said only when everyone “re-appropriates” their town and “creates a sense of place” will it flourish for generations to come.

The five-year St Austell Story project was unveiled at an event hosted at Cornwall College’s St Austell campus in May.

The idea behind the project is for everyone in the area to pull together to talk up St Austell and everything it has to offer so it is no longer maligned and decried but attracts new high value businesses while enhancing its rich industrial heritage.

The A30 becomes even more driver friendly

Since the dawn of motoring, the A30 has been a nightmare for locals and tourists alike. The dualling of the road through Goss Moor proved a godsend and the roll-out of works is continuing.

Drivers had to suffer tailbacks near Bodmin Moor as work dual the road between Temple and Higher Carblake went on for more than two years. That was completed in time for the summer school holidays in 2018.

The next stretch to be upgraded – 8.7 miles between Carland Cross and Chiverton Cross – is currently undergoing environmental surveys. It is hoped to be completed by 2021.

Further dualling between Hayle and Penzance could also be on the cards after the Highways Agency confirmed it was something it would look at.

The helicopter service returns from Penzance to the Isles of Scilly

An AW139 Helicopter flies over the Isles of Scilly (Image: Penzance Heliport)

2018 was the year that saw the battle of the helicopter services as two operators competed to reinstate the service between the mainland and the Isles of Scilly.

Britain’s newest air service from the Isles of Scilly Steamship Company launched in May with a state-of-the-art aircraft out of Land’s End Airport.

The service is in direct competition with a £2 million scheme planned by Tresco owner Robert Dorrien-Smith which would see a heliport return to Penzance. Passengers could be flying from the new heliport by the summer of this year.

The backers of both competing schemes agree that the new helicopter service(s) will provide a £6m boost to the islands’ economy.

Poldark port Charlestown gets revitalised

The picturesque Charlestown harbour (Image: Lisa Jones)

Founder of the Lost Gardens of Heligan and co-founder of the Eden Project, Sir Tim Smit, purchased the historic port of Charlestown last summer with a vision to develop the visitor experience.

His purchase includes the inner and outer harbour, adjoining beaches, two shops, roads, workshops and historic sailing ships.

Sir Tim had already taken over the Shipwreck and Heritage Centre as well as nautical-themed restaurant Loveday’s, fronted by former Fifteen chef Andy Chown.

Penzance to become one of the UK’s leading spa destinations

What the new Jubilee Pool geothermal spa will look like when it reopens (Image: GEL)

Following a huge investment in Jubilee Pool over the past few years to repair the storm damage of 2014 and secure its future and one of its most successful seasons ever, the UK’s biggest seawater lido underwent the first drilling tests in 2018 to become the first facility of its kind to be heated using geothermal technology.

Work started in winter 2017/18 to drill the geothermal well, using a £1.4 million grant from the European Regional Development Fund, alongside additional private sector investment of £400,000.

Geothermal Engineering Ltd, the company which has been drilling holes into the ground below the famous Jubilee Pool to tap into the Earth’s natural heat, said it found a warm water ‘geothermal vein’ 410 metres deep into the rock below Penzance‘s iconic sea water open air lido, meaning temperatures will reach up to 30C.

Jubilee Pool has recently raised over £500,000 via a community share offer towards the £1.8m project to construct the proposed new heated section of the pool, double the size of the café and create new community space.

The new geothermal technology could see part of the pool heated by the summer of 2019.

This will have huge benefits not just for Penzance but for the whole of Cornwall, putting it on the map as a year-round outdoor spa destination.

Cornwall could be home to a thriving geothermal industry

United Downs Deep Geothermal Power project at St Day near Redruth (Image: GEL)

The boss of a new ground-breaking geothermal energy power company believes it could revitalise Cornwall.

Peter Ledingham, project manager at Geothermal Engineering Ltd (GEL), which is building Britain’s first deep hot rocks power plant on an industrial estate at United Downs, is hoping to see more sites open all over Cornwall.

GEL, which has had planning consent for the site since 2010, said 3,000 homes could be powered by the renewable energy power station – and that’s only the beginning.

“My hope is that in 20 years’ time there will be so many geothermal power stations in Cornwall [that] people will be fed up with them and moan like they do about solar and wind farms,” Mr Ledingham said.

“When that happens, it will mean there is a thriving geothermal industry working well in Cornwall.”

A huge new marina development

The latest plans for Penlee Quarry

There is support for the latest plans to redevelop the disused Penlee Quarry near Newlyn.

The beauty spot, which lies just back from the ocean south of the fishing town, is owned by the Corbally Group, which has been working with MDL Marinas on a new scheme for the 100-acre site.

In February 2018, the owner submitted a pre-planning application to Cornwall Council to seek advice for an ambitious redevelopment of the quarry.

The plans include a cut through to join the quarry with the sea, creating a 195-berth marina.

In addition, the scheme would comprise a ‘small’ hotel, residential apartments, offices, retail space, a car park and a dry stack facility for power boats, RIBs and small day boats.