Building new homes is very high on the agenda at the moment due to the national shortage. However, that doesn’t stop some houses facing problems, set backs and delays. In fact, in Cornwall it doesn’t even stop a whole village being built… with one big flaw. You can’t actually access it. At least not by foot, which was the plan.

Villagers in Mabe, near Falmouth, face the problem after developers well and truly mucked up. The development was green-lit in 2012 with one thing missing, a path, or road linking it to the exisiting village. The new houses were intended to grow Mabe by 10% but because of a planning error, local residents can’t access the new community by foot. Instead they have to drive via the main road.

The problem is due to the land where the footpath was intended to be built isn’t actually owned by Cornwall Council, and so couldn’t be used in the development. This has led to locals climbing over fences and walls to avoid having to drive to the local shops.

Cornwall Council said, "Despite lengthy and detailed discussions ... the desire to provide the footpath has proved to be impractical due to constraints around land ownership, public liability insurance, safety of schoolchildren and people using the footpath."

Discussions are on going to try and solve the problem but could take a while. Maybe locals should invest in jetpacks, teleportation equipment or some kind of tunnelling device…