No to the Devonwall seat

All responses submitted to the consultation on the recommendations for new constituency boundaries, including a Bideford and Bude seat, are now available online. The "Boundary Commission for England" has allowed people to comment further on the responses until midday on 3rd April 2012.

If you want to see what people have said and make comment, go to http://consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/

I have looked at a number of the responses and I am particularly disappointed at the three main London-based political parties. They are fully aware of the strength of feeling in Cornwall, but have failed to even go through the motions of spilling a few more crocodile tears on this issue.

The official Conservative document contains fine words about respecting “county” boundaries and council boundaries, where possible, but goes on to support the “proposal to combine the counties of Cornwall and Devon” for the purposes of allocating parliamentary seats. They also state: “We support the Commission’s decision to cross the Cornwall-Devon border in the north of both counties.”

The Liberal Democrats also back an electoral Cornwall and Devon sub-region and have little to say on the cross-Tamar constituency, other than that they “accept the BCE’s proposal.”

The Labour Party meanwhile states: “We support the overall pattern proposed by the Commission, and many of the specific proposals, including … the creation of the new Bideford and Bude CC.”

The ongoing refusal of Coalition MPs and their parties to protect the territorial integrity of Cornwall suggests that the situation is bleak. But it is clear that there is growing anxiety amongst MPs, including some Cabinet members, about the final outcome of the boundary review.

MPs will have a vote in 2013 as to whether the changes are acceptable and it has been revealed that many, who face losing their seats and livelihoods, could oppose the changes. Tory Minister Ian Duncan Smith has even appealed to the Prime Minister to ditch the whole process.

So we may yet prevent a Devonwall seat becoming a reality, but we do need to keep pressure on MPs and their political parties.

The Lib Dems and affordable housing

Over the last few days, Liberal Democrat councillor Alex Folkes has blogged ten times about: “What the Lib Dems have achieved in government – parts 1-10. He has also reproduced what he terms info-graphics produced by Mark Pack.

I haven’t had time to assess the veracity of all the claims, but I found myself drawn to “part 9” which focussed on housing (see below graphic).

Cllr Folkes wrote: “Across the UK housing waiting lists have been growing. Here in Cornwall, despite the claims by the council to have plans to have built new houses, the housing waiting list grew by 2000 names in just two months and now stands at more than 23,000 families.

“Since the general election, the Government has prioritised new affordable homes to rent and to buy. With the Liberal Democrats in government we have seen more than 150,000 affordable homes built across the UK. At the same time as Cornwall Council's commitment to affordable housing seems to be slipping, the government is turning up the heat.”

But the graphic clearly states that: “150,000 new affordable homes are being built over the next four years, the first increase in social housing supply for over thirty years.”

It seems that Cllr Folkes’ spin is in overdrive … have the houses been built or are they to be built?

Could I remind Cllr Folkes that it is the Conservative / Liberal Democrat Coalition Government that, amongst other things, has:

(i) massively slashed investment in affordable housing.

(ii) replaced the social rent model with a new “affordable rent” model that sets rents at 80% of the inflated cost of private sector rents, increasing the cost of housing to the less-well-off.

(iii) reinvigorated the ‘right-to-buy’ of council houses with increased discounts to tenants.

(iv) made regressive changes to housing benefit arrangements for single people.

Governance Review Panel

The first meeting of the Council's new Governance Review Panel took place today. The situation is that the Localism Act allows Councils to review how they are run and sets out three broad options, as follows:

1. An Executive model of governance (eg. a ten strong Cabinet).
2. A committee model of governance.
3. Some form of hybrid of the top two systems.

The Panel will carry out this review over the next six months, so that the Full Council can take a decision on how the next Council is structured.

I sit on the 15-strong Panel as the one MK member and was elected Vice-Chairman today.

GREAT NEWS: New community building for Indian Queens Pit

For me, the best part of my role as a councillor is submitting grant applications and working to make local projects happen.

I am therefore very pleased to be able to report that over £100,000 has been raised to build a new community building at Indian Queens Pit and work is due to commence in the very near future.

The new building will include a kitchen, display area/meeting room, modern toilets and storage facilities. It will replace an extremely run-down modular building, a storage building (constructed in asbestos sheeting) and a small, outdated toilet unit.

The Clay Country Local Action Group has awarded a grant of £52,000 to the project and the Cornwall SITA Trust has allocated £30,000, while the trustees had previously secured £4,630 from the former Restormel Borough Council.

St Enoder Parish Council has supported the initiative with £10,000 and the members of the Pit Association have themselves raised over £8,000 from local fundraising

It is our hope that the new building will be a hub around which we will be able to encourage more individuals and groups to visit the monument. It will also help us to increase the number of community, music and cultural events taking place at the venue.

We have also received a grant from the FEAST programme to commission a play which will be performed by the community in 2013, and fundraising continues to improve interpretation and educational materials on the site.

The above photograph comprises many, but not all, of the members of our Committee.

MK featured in The Times

The Cornish Movement was highlighted in The Times today with a three page spread to mark St Piran’s Day. It was another positive piece and featured Independent Cllr Bert Biscoe and MK Cllrs Andrew Long and Loveday Jenkin.

To give you a taste of the article, here are a few quotes:

The Cornish are indignant that a petition signed by more than 10 per cent of the population calling for a referendum on self-government has been ignored despite government promises for more than a decade. St Piran … would be turning in his grave at such intransigence if his remains had not been dug up and distributed as relics to churches across the South West.

“Cornwall is a British nation being treated like an English county. My nationality is Cornish, I don’t feel English at all, and I would feel a lot more British if the UK Government recognised us as the fifth constituent nation,” says Sam, a student from Truro.

Ian Saltern, a Cornish activist sums it up when he says: “Cornish is my ethnic and national identity. I can feel no more English than someone who is Scottish, Welsh or Irish."

In recent years, Cornish separatists have been emboldened by the coalition Government. Cornwall used to be the heartland of Britain’s Liberal Democrats. Nothing, apart perhaps from a tax on pasties, could have done more to boost Mebyon Kernow, the Cornish nationalist party, than the Lib Dem’s alliance with the hated Tories. The party recently won a fifth seat on Cornwall Council. It has four more than Labour …

Andrew Long gave up his job as a shopfitter to devote himself to his work as a councillor. He says: “We are trying to drive home to central government that just because it is big doesn’t mean it is better. We are fed up with decades of people not giving a monkey’s about Cornwall. We are not talking about border controls on the Tamar, but we see ourselves as part of a federated British Isles."

Dr Jenkin agrees: “Just because we are small does not mean that we can’t look after ourselves. There are masses of examples of small regions being able to run their own affairs.”