Illogan Public Meeting

Last night Lawrence Molton and I hosted a public meeting at the Illogan Wellbeing Centre on the subject of development in Cornwall.

I was very heartened by the excellent turnout - I wasn't sure if people would turn up.

I was particularly encouraged because, amongst the people who attended, was the young lady in the photo. If Cornish politics is to be rescued from middle aged or retired men, like me, then we need to encourae as many young people to engage with the system as possible. MK has several young councillors leading the way in this field.

Also speaking at the meeting were Cllr Jean Charman, in her capacity as the chairman of the Trelawney Alliance, and Dr Bernard Deacon from CoSERG.

Our guest speakers were very well received and the residents of Illogan were unanimous in their condemnation of the Core Strategy proposal from Cornwall Council.

Just as it was at the Trelawney Alliance meeting a few weeks ago, it is clear that there is a groundswell of opinion that does not understand why we need to build a minimum of 48,000 houses in Cornwall.

In Park Bottom (part of Illogan Parish) there is a plan to build 300 houses - this will literally double the size of the village. What nobody can understand is just who all these houses are for. It is clear that doubling the size of a Cornish village is not necessary to house people from that village.

In fact it is clear from the evidence of ONS figures that Cornwall has a falling indigenous population so the extra housing must be for in-migrants and not for the people of Cornwall.

Even allowing for decreasing household size and a reasonable level of in-migration CoSERG have calculated that somewhere in the region of 12,000 - 13,000 houses would be required in the next twenty years. Even though it is easier to get blood from a stone than it is to get Cornwall Council planners to admit it, it is clear that a minimum of 35,000 houses will be built in order to encourage in-migration.

Where does madcap planning like this end?

Only Mebyon Kernow have a housing and planning policy that is tailored to the needs of Cornwall. We believe in building houses predominantly for local need - not developers' greed. MK also advocates commencing a programme of building proper council houses again - rather than following the Westminster ideology of selling as many as possible.

Public Meeting in Illogan

I shall be holding a public meeting in Illogan on Thursday February 23rd.

There will be one item on the agenda - the hopelessly unsustainable over-development of Cornwall and how it will impact Illogan.

If anyone wants to come along it will start at 7:00pm at the Wellbeing Centre, Illogan Churchtown.

I am hoping to have speakers from CoSERG and the Trelawney Alliance.

Inappropriate Development - Fightback?

As you may have gathered, if you have read some of my recent posts (here , here and here for example) I get quite riled by the way Westminster uses words. The London parties use definitions of everyday words and phrases to make what they are doing appear to be what normal people would think was a good idea. In fact the very reverse is always closer to the truth.

Nothing provides a better example of this than the ConDem approach to 'Localism', 'Affordable Housing' and development in general.

I have decided to see if there are any like-minded people in and around Illogan who feel the same way.

Westminster pretty much has things sewn up - but perhaps, with support, we could fight back a little.

here is the text of a letter that I have sent to Illogan residents.

Dear Friend,

Westminster politicians¸ of all hues, are guilty of cynically misleading us!

They use terms such as ‘Localism’ and ‘Affordable Housing’ in order to appear as if they know and understand the problems that we face in Cornwall related to housing and development. The truth is that when you look closely at the small print and official definitions of these terms they are actually ways of encouraging development, creating profits for developers on the back of houses which local people can’t even begin to hope to afford to buy.

I would like to do something to stop this travesty. It is probably a near impossible job but somebody has to try! If you would like to support my campaign to uncover the Westminster development lies then please join me at The Meeting Room, Melting Pot Café, Krowji on Wednesday 14^th December 2012 at 7:00pm.

I will be chairing a meeting to discuss the issues surrounding development and what Mebyon Kernow stands for please come along and help me to make a difference for Illogan and to put Cornwall first!

Of course, if anyone from outside of Illogan wants to come along to the Melting Pot Cafe, Krowji, Redruth on Wednesday 14th December at 7:00pm, you would be very welcome.

Illogan Parish Plan

The Illogan Parish Plan has finally been completed and launched.

The process has taken several years and has involved gauging the opinion of the people of Illogan through questionnaires and then a 'roadshow'.

There is no question that an awful lot of hard work has gone into the plan, which has been created by a steering group made up from the Illogan community. A massive amount of data has been collected and opinions have been collated to show where people believe Illogan's strengths and weaknesses lie. Congratulations to all of those involved in putting this document together.

For me though there is one big disappointment. I believe that the most important part of any plan is to provide a clear signpost as to how to achieve the objectives within the plan. In a plan such as this there should have been strong 'SMART' goals.

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Unfortunately, it seems that, instead of using SMART principles, the action plan has been made up of some rather non-descript and generically grey 'bureau-speak'.

Cllr David Ekinsmyth, chairman of Illogan Parish Council, and the driving force behind the plan, has said that he wanted a plan that will not gather dust on a shelf. It's hard to see how the action plan will lead to anything but this. Worse still, the final action plan is so vague that there is a danger that it may be used to justify future activity by IPC instead of driving it. It would be very easy to fit any normal, day to day council activity within the action plan and put a tick in a box somewhere.

If you are interested the plan can be found here