Ritika Janiya
One of Cornwall’s biggest-ever projects is underway as part of the Langarth Garden Village, which will provide homes for 10,000 people over the next two decades or quarter of a century. New roads, housing, a primary school, and community centers will dramatically change the region and bring new opportunities while sorting out the housing crisis.
Unless you have driven along the A390 between Truro and the new stretch of A30, you may not have seen the start of something big. Langarth Garden Village is a new project that, provided all goes as planned, will have homes for up to 10,000 people in the next 20 to 25 years. Much of the work is hidden from view, making it hard to see how fast things are moving.
A new Northern Access Road, running in a valley, will link the new village into the A390 and the A30, which go west to the Royal Cornwall Hospital and the city of Truro. The first part of this road will open next year. The total number of homes in the first phase of housing is around 750, projected to be built over five years at a rate of 150 homes per year.
It’s the big housing project which has contributed much towards the makeover of Cornwall Council; replication of this elsewhere then is the way to go so that a housing crisis can be solved. Those behind it are outlining ten more garden villages of this scale across the county.
We joined Harry Lewis, project director for Treveth—the council’s development company, Steve Worthington, project manager for Cormac—the council’s wing on highways and engineering, and Olly Monk, Cornwall Council’s portfolio holder for housing, on a construction site.
Next to the busy Langarth Park and Ride, you wouldn’t think that most people feeding into this area are actually engulfed by a huge development. Harry showed us how the 650-acre site was mapped, going through phases of the build. The new 3.4km road is funded by Homes England for £47.5m and is almost complete; it should be finished by summer of 2025.
Parts of the single-lane road with cycleways, pedestrian footways, and lining trees are already in one’s view. Harry said the compulsory purchase order process of cleaning up the land and working with neighboring landowners was a tough one but successful.
LVG Property Holdings will invite house builders into the project in October. Building works are due to start in 2026 with the first houses expected towards the end of 2026 or early 2027.
Olly Monk thinks that is an excellent opportunity for housebuilders in Cornwall. Indeed, initially, three or four major developers will work on the site, but in future phases, local Cornish builders will become involved. He wants to see variety in the design of the houses so each has Developer’s unique touch.
A new primary school is scheduled to open its doors in September 2027. There will be a centre to this village featuring a number of shops, a business hub, a healthcare centre, and a bar. The new Truro Sports Hub, which is part of the overall project, is also coming on in leaps and bounds. Truro City FC will start playing on their new pitch in September.
It will also have a community building and pitch alongside Truro City’s pitch in the Sports Hub. Harry said that, from day one, the infrastructure such as the Sports Hub and the village center is being constructed to “build community.”
Over 1,200 out of 4,000 houses will be affordable. These housing units will be integrated or scattered within the development, not put all together.
The garden village project is also helping to increase the skills base in Cornwall. The council has worked with Truro and Penwith College to create skills hubs, which will enable young people in Cornwall to build careers in housebuilding and related industries without needing to leave the county.
Cornwall Council has invited landowners, developers, and land agents to invite suggestions on any sites they believe should be developed in the future. By 2050, Cornwall’s population will have increased to approximately 630,000; therefore, many more such schemes are required so that there is no inequality in housing.
Of course, Langarth shares the challenges common to every major project. Harry elaborated on current issues with inflation and the supply chain that hit the works hard but also added that the process had to keep elements in the loop. Community engagements, in numbers, serve to keep everything in light.
Steve, who runs day-to-day construction, said the earthworks are in an area of major part of the project costing around 10-15% of the overall budget. Other key elements included in the program are conservation and ecology; almost half the site will be covered as parkland and green space. Resident ecologists and environmental specialists oversee the project so as to achieve the biodiversity goals.
