Friends and supporters of St Gorran Community Land Trust are celebrating the success of their £370,000 project to transform Gorran’s dilapidated church and schoolrooms into five one-bed affordable flats.

The CLT was the brainchild of Tom White, landlord of the Barley Sheaf who brought together a group of local business and retired professionals in 2013 to save the premises from the hands of property developers and provide a resource for the local community.

Legal title was not secured until September last year but work finished in June 2016. All five flats have now been let to local people at affordable rents. A separate community room, with modern facilities, is already in use.

On Friday, The Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, Col. Edward Bolitho, joined members of the Gorran community to toast the scheme’s success and the project is now being recognised as a model scheme, with a presentation made recently to Cornwall Community Network at St Austell One-Stop Shop.

The bulk of the finance for the project has been raised via a mortgage through Triodos Bank, which specialises in community projects of this type. Additional financing has come from generous gifts and interest free loans from the local community, along with grants from SITA (Cornwall) Trust, Garfield Weston, The Duchy of Cornwall Benevolent Fund, Cornwall Council and others.

Further information available from Bob Thornton – Chair St Goran CLT Ltd: 01726 842968