New play equipment in St Enoder Parish

As today’s Full Council meeting was postponed, I spent much of the day in the Indian Queens Recreation Ground where works have started to erect a Multi Use Games Area (fenced area measuring 20m by 12m with goal-ends and basketball nets) and to construct skateboard equipment on an existing tarmac surface.

The Recreation Ground is owned by the Parish Council and I have helped to pull together the funding for this project, which includes £10,000 from the former Restormel Borough Council and a £47,000 grant from China Clay Area’s Local Action Group. This is part financed by the European Agricultural Fund for European Development to promote and support business and community development in the China Clay Area.

The Parish Council also owns the Thomas Playing Field at Summercourt, where we have just erected a new metal climbing frame (above) to replace a smaller and aged wooden frame that had to be removed last year. These improvement works were supported by a £5,000 donation from the former Restormel Borough Council and a £8,000 grant from the Lottery’s Awards for All funding programme.

Also positioned within St Enoder Parish is the Fraddon Millennium Green, which is run by a group of trustees with financial support from the Parish Council. I am one of the trustees and we have just refurbished the Green’s existing play area. This included the renovation of the “Leonard the Loco” play engine, repair of the see-saw, two new seats for parents and a new metal fence around the play area.

The Green has also had a further facelift with Groundwork South West cleaning footpaths in the park, trimming back hedges and making other improvements.

Camborne North by-election

I have just heard that the Conservatives won the Camborne Town Council by-election in North Ward. The result was as follows:

Conservative - 478
Labour - 318
John Rowe (Mebyon Kernow) - 279

I would like to congratulate John for fighting a strong campaign. I believe that this was his third election in Camborne North and that this was his highest number of votes … so far

On another note, MK’s dispute with the Conservatives over their misrepresentation of MK’s position on local housing was featured in the West Briton today (see previous blog). When the journalist was writing the story he contacted me for information about the nature of the misleading information on the Tory leaflet. I supplied this information within a couple of hours. You can image how angry I was to see to see the article printed today, on polling day, claim that MK had “refused” to supply the information.

I have already been in contact with the paper and have sought an assurance that this further misrepresentation will be redressed in next week’s paper.

Misleading leaflet in Camborne by-election

Today, voters in Camborne will be going to the polls to elect a new representative for the Town Council (North Ward). MK’s candidate is John Rowe and he is opposed by candidates from the Conservative and Labour Parties.

Sadly, Mebyon Kernow have had to request an apology from the Conservative Party due to a misleading comment in one of their leaflets. The leaflet included an “out-of-context” quotation that was in my name. The Conservative leaflet stated:

‘No’ to further building of more homes on green-field sites in Camborne.

Dick Cole MK Leader on Cornwall Council, quoted in the West Briton, ‘protected green-field land on the boundary of settlements can be developed for subsidised homes.’ It begs the question, would MK really oppose housing developments on green-field sites?’

The quotation attributed to me was actually in the Western Morning News in early October, when the Council’s Development Plan on Affordable Housing was launched for consultation. I do not know if it was reprinted in the West Briton. The full extract was as follows:

This week Cornwall Council launches its Affordable Housing Development Plan Document (DPD). The exercise will re-assess where and how to build affordable homes "in an era of decreasing public subsidy."

Councillor Dick Cole, chairman of the panel which drafted the "innovative" document, said it sought to maximise the dwindling number of new sites and encourage communities to present their own small schemes. Mr Cole said this would include controversial "exception" sites, where protected green-field land on the boundary of settlements can be developed for subsidised homes.

As one and all can see, firstly it was not actually a direct quote. I would not have used those exact words but it does broadly reflect the position of myself and also Cornwall Council. But it clearly demonstrates that I was discussing community-supported small schemes and “exception sites” in rural areas, not large-scale developments around urban areas such as Camborne.

Indeed, as the Chairman of the Planning Policy Advisory Panel, I am extremely disappointed that my work, and that of the Panel, has been misrepresented for the purposes of gaining political advantage.

It must be pointed out that members of all political groups were involved in producing the Development Plan Document, which was then fully agreed for consultation by the Conservative-led Council. So, in misrepresenting what I said, Conservatives in Camborne were also actually criticizing the approach of their own Conservative colleagues.

Budget discussions at Cabinet

Cornwall Council’s Cabinet met today and recommended an emergency budget for the authority. This will now be presented to Full Council on 30 November.

I attempted to raise a number of issues about the extent of the cuts, how the “unavoidable budget pressures” had been calculated, and whether the cuts to certain services were appropriate or even deliverable.

No further information was forthcoming at the meeting, but the MK Group is continuing to challenge those parts of the budget papers where the detail is lacking or has yet to be prepared.

At the meeting, I also asked about the Cabinet’s proposal to revisit the pay and conditions of staff and asked that this be addressed sympathetically. One of the things that I spoke out against was any change to severance packages for people who might be made redundant. These were changed only last year and I feel that it would be morally indefensible to modify the arrangements in any way so that people losing their jobs in the future would get less than colleagues who are leaving now or have already left.

When the unitary council was created there were approaching 12,000 staff (not including schools). It is now less than 10,000 and, if the projected cuts occur, this will fall to closer to 8,000.

But, at the same time, there has been an increase in the number of staff earning over £50,000, up from 127 in 2007-2008 to 143 in 2010.

I told the meeting that while staff numbers are falling, it must be questioned why the the cost of high-earners is rising, adding that any review of pay and conditions must protect the less-well-off and rebalance the fairness of the wage bill.

And at this time, it means addressing other potential savings such as consultants, and expensive interim and agency staff.

A consistent approach to Cornwall?

In my latest column in the Cornish Guardian, I addressed the approach of the London parties to Cornwall and its integrity as a unit. It was as follows:

The decision by central government to give the green light to the creation of a Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has, according to Cornwall Council, “been greeted with delight” by amongst others “representatives of the local business community.”

But last week, the proposed LEP, which would work to promote enterprise and regeneration across the area, was lambasted by Exeter’s Labour MP Ben Bradshaw.

Mr Bradshaw, who wanted a larger “multi-county”” partnership, told the House of Commons that Cornwall “as is so often the case, wanted to go it alone - a move unfortunately endorsed by the Government for political purposes.” He claimed this was much to “the consternation of the Cornwall business community and business leaders in the rest of the peninsula.”

Strange that. The bid for the LEP was actually supported by a wide range of local business figures including the Chairmen of Cornwall’s Federation of Small Businesses, the Cornwall Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Cornwall Business Partnership and the Cornwall Voluntary Sector Forum, as well as the Managing Directors of firms such as Ginsters and St Austell Brewery.

Eden’s Tim Smit meanwhile describes the LEP as a “once in a lifetime opportunity for Cornwall to take control of its own destiny and to make a huge statement about its ability to shape its own future.”

I am in total agreement with this view. For too long, Cornwall lost out to “Devon and Cornwall” or “South-West” arrangements, where the main benefits were felt to the east of the Tamar.

Indeed, in the 1990s it was only because Cornwall and Devon were disaggregated, and Cornwall was treated as a region in its own right, that we were able to harness much-needed investment through the European structural funds of Objective One and its successor programmes.

I am genuinely heartened that the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition wish to respect the territoriality of Cornwall and treat it, in their words, as a “functional economic unit.”

But, at the same, I find it unbelievable that they are also pushing through a reform of parliamentary boundaries which will undermine Cornwall’s political integrity by creating at least one cross-Tamar constituency. How contradictory is that?

I also welcome the Labour Party’s continued opposition to the creation of Devonwall seats but, at the same time, I cannot understand the desire of Labour MPs to undermine the planned Local Enterprise Partnership and damage Cornwall’s economic prospects.

Isn’t it about time that the main parties treated Cornwall and local concerns in a consistent manner and not just as a political football?