Day 6 at the Examination in Public

I attended the morning session of today’s final day of the EiP at the Atlantic Hotel, Newquay, and it all felt very different from previous days.

Topics for discussion included the wording for policies to protect and enhance Cornwall’s environment, both natural and historic. It was telling that most the contributions came from bodies such as the National Trust and Natural England, while there were a small number of parish councillors present. Most of the debate related to the fine-tuning of the proposed policies.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, the horde of developers and their agents who, last week, were queuing up to demand more housing, were largely not present.

Additional information from today is that it is appears likely that the Inspector will seek that the Council adds an additional allocation into the plan for the “provision of 2,550 places in communal establishments for older persons, including nursing and specialist accommodation.”

This will be a standalone allocation of bed-spaces and will not be included within the overall housing target.

I will report more when the unitary authority gets the initial feedback from the Inspector.