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.

Consultation or Indoctrination

Yesterday I visited the indoctrination consultation roadshow for Cornwall Council's Core Strategy at Pool Innovation Centre. There was a nice set of display boards with various key pieces of information and several planning officers available to answer questions.

One of my concerns about this whole process is the nature of this whole 'consultation' exercise.

The fact is that there is no consultation on the main concepts of the strategy (such as whether we need a minimum [see the PS below] of 48,000 new houses). This was quite openly admitted by the planning officer that I spoke to when I asked whether there was any real point to the consultation.

Then again, what is the point of consultation if it is ignored? During last year's round of consultation, CoSERG submitted detailed proposals with a strategy that indicates that much less housing is needed (14,000 houses at the time). This had apparently been ignored because it 'was not backed up with evidence'.

I asked what weight would my opinion carry if the council weren't prepared to listen to the advisory panel specifically set up to advise the council and who used the 'evidence' that planning officers themselves had provided. The reply was that the councillors on the panel had not acted in line with the evidence presented to them and that the figure of 48,000 was the correct one from the evidence base.

However, when I questioned whether the 'evidence' of the last few years of low numbers of new house building warranted 48,0000 houses I was told that this evidence wasn't accurate because the planners expected demand to pick up in the long term. It all seems a bit selective to me?

We should also remember that last year one of the options that we were 'consulted' on was a growth figure of some 30,000 odd houses. What 'evidence' were the planners using when they thought that this was a viable figure to use in the core strategy and why isn't it applicable now?

Another problem that I have with the current consultation is that the documents provided are couched in planning jargon and full of meaningless or ubsubstantiated assumptions. For example, I had to ask what 'Transformational Regeneration" was. As far as I could follow (even the planner had difficulty in providing an explanation) it is regeneration focussed on providing regeneration rather than simply as part of other aims and objectives - a kind of regeneration plus - or, to a cynic llike me, development max.

The document is also littered with vacuous phrases such as 'We are part of it, not apart from it.' Most worrying is the totally uninspiring and vapid 'achieve a leading position in sustainable living' - most worrying because this is the Council's 'vision' that is supposed to be the bedrock on which the whole strategy is based. Apart from this gobbledygook much of the document is simply a long wish list of nice things - it might be a perfect portfolio for a contestant in a beauty show (who wished for world peace and an end to hunger everywhere) but it doesn't really cut the mustard as a document which is supposed to tackle issues of deprivation and social injustice and shape the way that Cornwall will meet the future.

If you ignore the question of whether there is a point to this consultation or if any evidence that is provided will be the 'right kind of evidence' there is still the problem of indoctrination rather than consultation.

The current round of roadshows are happening across Cornwall. At each roadshow are great looking display boards with bright colourful graphics depicting 'key facts'. There are several professional planners available to answer questions and assure the public that the council knows best.

But where is the alternative view?

Now I'm no expert on planning technicalities but I have been learning to question some (or most) of the information and 'facts' that the council puts into the public domain. Most of the 'key facts' that were being presented were simply opinion or not as important or relevent as they were being made out to be - they just sounded impressive.

What is needed for this to be a true exercise in consultation (as opposed to indoctrination) is for an alternative point of view to be available alongside the council's slick propaganda. Opposition groups should be given the opportunity (and funded) to attend alongside the professional planners (who are paid for their time as part of their job). This would give ordinary people who attend the roadshows, and know nothing of planning or local government, a chance to have a balanced picture of what they are being consulted on - instead of the loaded messages and selectively presented facts that are being used to encourage the particular synthesis that is the Core Strategy.

Finally, the planning process should be about policy shaping the future rather than the past shaping policy. We need politicians who will put Cornwall first and are prepared to put the interests of the people of Cornwall ahead of being seen to be getting something done.

What I mean by this (my very own bit of vacuous gobbledygook) is that politicians need to be brave enough to say that Cornwall should be planning to meet the needs of the people of Cornwall rather than those elsewhere. We need to end the situation where public funding is dependent on gleaning the scraps falling from the developers' banquet. Instead of encouraging hyper-development so that politicians in the council cabinet can be remembered for getting things done, we need to have faith in, and listen to, our communities who are screaming out for a respite from growth and a chance to recover.

PS the word 'minimum' has appeared in the core strategy document as a direct result of the gung-ho, 'presumption-in-favour-of-development' Tory led (with Lib Dem whipping boys trailing behind) coalition's Loclism Act. You see it is no longer possible for the council to plan for 'just' 48,0000 houses because the Cornish public could always call for more if they so wished!

What Colour Do You Want The Front Doors?

The Tory government, with its Lib Dem side-kick is intent on gathering in power to Westminster. This is all being done under a cloak of 'localism' or 'empowerment'.

For example we are continually told that the localism Bill will give power to local neighbourhoods to plan how they want their development. This is quite simply not true. Unless a local neighbouhood actually desires to concrete over every square inch of green (in which case it can demand that the local planning authority does just that), it will have no greater opportunity than to say what development goes ahead than to (maybe) determine the colour of the front doors of the houses that have already been pre-destined for its locality.

I recently wrote to Cornwall Council to ask what help the Council would have to assist neghbourhoods in producing a local plan. Part of the reply included this telling phrase:

"Furthermore, I would ensure you are clear as to what you would be
seeking to get out of the process - to ensure that a Neighbourhood Plan
is indeed the right approach to be taking. A couple of points to be
clear on is that a Neighbourhood Plan has to be in conformity with the
Cornwall Core Strategy (i.e. the neighbourhood plan has to plan for
housing/economic growth which is at least of the same scale as the Core
Strategy is targeting for Illogan, or in excess of it)."

So there you go. At least the same scale as the Core Strategy, or in excess of it. Lys Kernow is under no illusion as to what powers neighbourhoods will have - isn't it about time our 'local' Westminster politicians were just as honest with us?

Local neighourhoods will only be able to increase levels of development which are set by Cornwall Council. In turn Cornwall Council will have to base their development strategy on a policy of a 'presumption in favour of development' imposed by London.

What colour should we paint the front doors?

Disingenuous George

The Right Honourable George Eustice, our esteemed MP for Illogan (and elsewhere), certainly knows how to take some simple concepts and turn them on their heads!

Cornwall suffers an extremely high rate of population growth compared to parts of the UK. This growth is not down to the indigenous population increasing, but due to decades of Westminster policy which dictates that social and economic problems are best solved by growth.

It matters not that this philosophy has been a complete failure for Cornwall, each new generation of Westminster politicos tell us that growth is the way forward and this is swallowed hook, line and sinker by our Cornish councillors.

The Cornishman on the Camborne omnibus would tell you that we don't need more unaffordable housing, which is never built to meet local need, simply adding to the pressure on Cornwall's economy. Most local opinion would be against the building of houses - a plain and simple fact.

Not to be deterred by facts, Mr Eustice has cast his eye over the Localism Bill and urges us to believe that:

" In future, parish councils will be able to put forward their own plans and put them to a referendum of local residents. If supported, these parish plans will take precedence over the opinions of Cornwall Council planners."

So the person on the Camborne omnibus might look at that and think that MrEustice's friends in the ConDem government were finally trying to give some real power back to local people.

Utter rubbish unfortunately! What Mr Eustice actually means is that, where local plans include development and house building, the plan might override the local authority. In other words if Cornish councillors have managed to get past all of the hurdles such as "predeterminism", "a presumption in favour of 'sustainable' growth" and the threat of legal action if planning permission is denied, then local town and parish councils can still insist that houses get built. In other words what Mr Eustice points to as a golden opportunity for people to have a say in what their communities look like is merely another way of promoting development and the construction of houses.

If the 'local plan' states that the community does not want any development then this will be ignored and outweighed by the presumption in favour of development. In no case will a local plan, which attempts to block house building, be allowed precedence over London based developers.

For the Westminster politicians 'localism' is all about how to ensure that their ideologies are the only options for people to adopt!

Cornwall needs to adopt a 'steady state' policy towards development. We need time to rebuild our communities and to find real and lasting solutions to economic problems. The people of Cornwall are quite capable of doing this - if only we were able to be left to get on and do it.