LAND that was once thought would be used for a cliff railway in a Cornish town could now be developed to provide mixed-use employment and residential buildings.

Launceston-based company Bertram and Lavache Ltd said it has recently been approached by Cornwall Council with a view to developing land that the company owns on Newport Industrial Estate.

The company’s chairman, Nigel Bowman, told the Post the landowners wanted the land to be ‘used in such a way that it would be of benefit to the town’.

He added: “Some of the land on the Newport Industrial Estate could be used for housing and industry. Bertram and Lavache had a pre-planning meeting with Cornwall Council in January in which they agreed that the land, that’s about five acres, put aside for the cliff railway, could be used for industrial or residential. The plan is to do both.”

The company is planning a series of mixed-use buildings, that it said would provide ‘affordable workshop / sales / showroom space on the ground floor, with quality living accommodation above’.

Mr Bowman added: “With living accommodation above, I think there is scope for doing something really quite interesting there.

“We are stressing the green benefits. You don’t need to get into a motor car to go to work, and home to boil an egg. It’s going back to what town centres used to be.

“It’s only a stone’s throw and very short walk to go to the bank, or take prospective clients out for coffee in the town centre. I think it would link very well to the town.

“You don’t anymore need to worry about night time security on the industrial estate.”

The company said access would be via the existing road into the industrial estate.

A formal planning application has not yet been submitted.

Another spokesman for the company, Ronald Edwards, said: “There has been much concern locally at the large number of houses being built in the town without a similar increase in the number of jobs available.

“It is not desirable that Launceston should become a dormitory for businesses elsewhere — the company’s proposal to use this innovative solution (successfully demonstrated elsewhere in the country) should make the town an attractive destination for existing small businesses, entrepreneurs, and start-up businesses. The close proximity to the town centre is also an advantage.

“The approach by Cornwall Council — anxious to develop land such as this — has inspired Bertram and Lavache to look afresh at this site, and to develop a project which will turn waste ground into an asset for the town as a whole.”