St. Agnes

2006-10-29 Chapel Porth 41 by kernowseb

St. Agnes is described thus by one of the estate agents, Miller Countrywide:

St Agnes is a very popular vibrant coastal village situated on Cornwall’s scenic north coast with good local facilities including a range of interesting shops, cafes, restaurants, public houses and hotels open all year round. The village is an old fishing and mining community, a beautiful sandy beach at Chapel Porth and a second beach at Trevaunance Cove, both of which are popular with surfers.

I'd considered St. Agnes before but I'm distinctly worried by the degree of old mine workings there - I don't want a house that collapses into an old tunnel. However in looking for possible eco-houses I've found this one which is a new build in St. Agnes:

West Polberro, 3 bedroom detached, Guide Price £475,000 (on primelocation its given as OIEO)

This house does pretty well on the eco front:

• Use of local construction materials - e.g. stone recovered from the site
• Solar panels pre-heat the thermal store for hot water and underfloor heating
• Rainwater is used to flush the loos and for the washing machine
• Heat recovery stops loss of heat from ventilation fans

Less impressive:

• Space for an American style fridge-freezer - I've never soon one of these that is efficient!
  
• The third bedroom is tiny. And the second isn't large.
  
• Only double, not triple glazing (assumption based on not being mentioned as triple and all new windows must be double these days)
• No garage and no mention of off-road parking.
• Small gardens with little growing space and no mention of rainwater collection for watering of garden plants.
• No green house.
  
• No mention of systems to cool the house - it may be sufficiently well-insulated that it won't get too hot in the summer but without a rating being given that's hard to judge
  

There is nothing in the details to show how this building measures up on the new Energy Performance ratings which is a shame as I'd like to know just how much better it is than the average house. Especially as I regard this one as being expensive for a 2/3 bedroom house. It will need to save a great deal of money to make it worth the mark-up from a purely economic point of view. Though its location might make up for that - it seems to have lovely views.

However the biggest strike against it for us is that it seems to have rather small gardens - not consistent with the grow your own vegetables life style that I see as going with an eco-house. I've not seen them but when I've asked the agent I just got yet another pdf of the brochure and the developer has yet to reply.

Some of the other houses currently available in St. Agnes:

• Wheal Kitty, 5 bedroom detached, Two annexes Guide Price £795,000 This one seems to have gone now. 31 dec 07
• 4 bedroom house OIRO £725,000 - very close to a beach
• Wheal Friendly, 3 bedroom cottage, £600,000 - this one has its own engine house!
• 3 bedrooms detached bungalow with land (3 acres) Guide Price of £450,000
• Middlegates, 3 bed detached bungalow Asking price of £310,000 This one seems to have gone now. 31 dec 07