West Devon Borough Councillor Barry Ratcliffe has called for more to be done to provide affordable houses for young people in West Devon.

At North Tawton’s annual town meeting last week, Cllr Ratcliffe raised the housing crisis as a priority and urged residents in his Exbourne ward to help.

To be deemed ‘affordable’ at the moment, building developers must sell the property at 65% its market value, but Cllr Ratcliffe pointed out that very few young people are still able to pay that amount.

He said: ‘What we need to do more than anything else is build affordable housing for young people. If we could do that as a town, we could have land that could be used and if you could offer land that could be used, please get in touch.’

Cllr Ratcliffe’s plea came as the results of a North Tawton housing survey were released.

Of the 296 North Tawton residents who completed the survey, the majority said that they would rather own a home than rent yet only 85% of the respondents were already homeowners. A notable proportion of the 296 were young adults unable to afford a home.

The survey also revealed that 62 of the households wished to move. They said that one of the factors in their decision was the high cost of maintaining their current property, which is only set to increase during the current cost of living crisis.

West Devon Borough Council declared a housing crisis in February this year with fewer homes becoming available for long-term tenants as more and more landlords are using their second properties as holiday or airbnb lets.