At today’s Full Council meeting, the five MK councillors
backed a proposal for the Council to investigate taking the lead in delivering
a stadium for Cornwall .
Speaking on behalf of the group, I was critical of the
report in front of councillors and how the issue has been handled. My
speech was as follows:
The Mebyon Kernow group has discussed the issue of the
stadium at length and I would like to make the following statement:
In principle, we believe that Cornwall should
have the same facilities that other parts of the UK take
for granted. And why shouldn’t Cornwall have
a purpose-built sporting stadium like elsewhere?
As a group, we can support the first part of the
recommendation, specifically that the Cabinet “consider” taking a lead on the
stadium.
It is right that Cornwall Council does investigate the
options to support this project.
But we are extremely angered and saddened at how this issue
has been mishandled.
Only two months ago, at the last Full Council, councillors
were informed that Cornwall Council would not need to put “public money” into
the project.
And now, days after the massive housing development at
Langarth was approved, we have this request for funding. With respect, the
timing is at best cynical.
We are also appalled at the report in front of us today. It
is shockingly short on detail.
It does not tell us why the Cornwall Community Stadium Ltd
could not find the full funds. It does not explain what the difficulties
were. It does not tell us what the position is with governmental, grant or
European funding? It does not even tell us what the level of investment is
from the partners within the stadium.
Nor does it consider the nature of the impact on the capital
budget in any way at all!
As backbench councillors, we maintain that this is
unacceptable.
I also made it clear that we could not support the
recommendations as set out in the report, and moved an alternative proposal
based around the original. It was as follows:
That the Cabinet be invited to consider whether it would be
appropriate for the Council to take the lead in delivering a stadium for Cornwall which
promotes community use and economic benefit for the people of Cornwall .
That the Cabinet request the Environment & Economy and
Corporate Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committees to ensure that the
proposals for any scheme for a stadium for Cornwall are
fully scrutinised.
And a detailed report setting out the business case with full
financial information brought back to full Council to seek the views of all
Members, before Cabinet makes a decision.
The recommendations were seconded by independent councillor
Andrew Wallis, but lost by 55 votes to 46.
Voting in favour of the proposal were all five MK
councillors, the single Labour councillor, 17 Lib Dems, 13 independents and 10
Conservatives.
It was opposed by 26 Conservatives, 17 Lib Dems and 12
independents. Seven members abstained: two were independents and five were
Tories.
No comments:
Post a Comment