The Stadium for Cornwall has got the go ahead from Cornwall Council’s strategic planning committee.

But big questions still remain as to whether the £16 million or so needed to take the project forward will ever be found.

In terms of the application being discussed today, it is clear that the proposers had listened to previous concerns and modified their design as a result.

The stands are lower profile and the pitch will now have a 4G surface to enable it to be used more frequently.

I share the worries of my colleague Rob Nolan.

Rob fears the location might be the wrong one – and that it will enable the development of more (unwelcome) houses.

But it is clear that the design itself is good.

Still though, the question will remain as to how the development will ever be paid for.

Cornwall councillors have voted against any idea of giving the scheme any public money.

My personal view is that there needs to be a clear idea of the community benefit before public funding can be considered – and also that it was wrong to rule it out entirely at this time.

But any consideration of public money is particularly difficult at a time when all councils are seeing services cut.

With planning permission now secured, the scheme’s proposers now have a much better chance of attracting grant and private funding for the scheme.

As ever, time will tell.

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A think tank closely aligned to the Conservative Party has today produced a report which could see some of the most expensive parts of Cornwall ‘cleansed’ of social housing.

The Policy Exchange report, which has been enthusiastically endorsed by Housing Minister Grant Shapps, recommends that, when social housing in an expensive area becomes vacant then it should be sold off and the money used to buy or build social housing in cheaper places.

Note that ‘becoming vacant’ often means the tenant dying even if they still have family who live in the home.

The biggest problem with this plan is that it will lead to many towns and villages – particularly coastal communities – becoming completely free of social housing.

Low income families from the area will lose any chance they had of getting a home in the village, even if they have lived there all their lives, and will be forced to move elsewhere. In many cases, the property will simply become yet another second home.

Instead, we should be looking at genuinely mixed communities in all parts of Cornwall.

Nowhere should become a social housing ghetto and nowhere should be cleansed of all social housing.

Andrew George, Lib Dem MP for St Ives and West Cornwall said this on the plans:

“If they really want to ‘socially cleanse’ our villages of local families who are most in need of affordable housing then they’ll have a fight on their hands.”

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This afternoon, Cornwall Council backed a Lib Dem motion opposing any move towards regional pay or regional benefit levels – both of which would hit Cornwall very hard.

As far as I could see there were no Councillors who voted against and only three who abstained.

Sadly, one of these was the Cabinet Member for Finance.

My colleague Edwina Hannaford and I put forward the motion because of the noises that Chancellor George Osborne has made about local or regional pay deals.

As Cllr Andrew Wallis said; “Regional pay is not about fair pay, it is about cutting pay.”

If we had regional pay based on relative housing prices, on water charges, on public transport or leisure prices then the levels of pay would surely rise not fall. But we know that this isn’t the case and that the only effect would be to drive down pay levels.

At present, Cornwall has many excellent public sector staff. But how many would still be here if they could be paid more in Hampshire or Essex for doing the same job? A regional pay system would take tens of millions of pounds out of Cornwall’s economy and lead a downward spiral of pay as the public sector levels help to keep private sector pay up too.

Since the motion was submitted three weeks ago, Nick Clegg has made it clear that the Lib Dems won’t back regional pay and David Cameron’s proposed announcement of regional benefit levels never occurred after Lib Dems in Government said they would not back it.

Cornwall doesn’t want second class services and local residents deserve to keep the first class public sector workers we have.

The debate also allowed council leader Alec Robertson to clarify a comment he made in a public meeting in Launceston a few months ago. Asked about local pay deals, Cllr Robertson said that he was “generally in favour of anything with the word local in it”. Today Cllr Robertson made it clear that he would not support a move towards lower pay levels and he backed our motion.

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The news is trickling through that Bodmin councillor Lance Kennedy has made it through onto the shortlist to be the Conservative candidate for police commissioner in Devon and Cornwall.

This is quite a triumph for Lance, who has been set against by the party machine locally which seemed to be desperate to find anyone but him to be the candidate.

Lance (and the other shortlisted candidates) will now have to face the selectorate in three hustings events next week. But, contradicting their earlier statements on the issue, the Tory Party have decided that the hustings will be open only to Tory Party members and electors. It seems that people who usually back other parties (or no party at all) will be excluded and the appeal of the shortlisted candidates to reach across the political spectrum for votes will therefore not be tested.

The other interesting factor in the Tory selection is that it will be conducted using the Alternative Vote. Remember that a year ago the Conservatives were campaigning against this very system being used for parliamentary elections. So why are they using it for their own elections? Is First Past the Post not good enough for them?

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Amid all the joy over the Government’s welcome decision on the pasty tax, one slightly sour note is the decision by George Eustice to promote himself as the leader of the campaign to stop the measure.

According to the Telegraph:

“George Eustice, a Conservative Cornish MP, who has led the campaign to change the proposed tax increase on pasties, welcomed the move.”

George, like his fellow Cornish MPs, all backed the key amendment to the budget debate, but this was put forward by St Austell and Newquay MP Steve Gilbert, who also arranged the debate last week to keep the pressure up – a debate that Mr Eustice didn’t even attend.

As with any successful campaign, there was no one leader of this one. As mentioned in my last post, both I and people like Kernow King, Steve, John Endacott, local and national media and many Cornwall Community News readers played a key role from start to finish but it was a wider campaign than any single one of us (and I’ve certainly forgotten other key people – apologies).

Mr Eustice is acting like the John Terry of politics – turning up after the campaign has been won and claiming credit.

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The papers have been published for next week’s scrutiny meeting which is set to be the first chance for councillors outside the Cabinet to consider the plans for a stadium for Cornwall.

And whilst I still believe that there are many questions which have not been answered and claims which do not add up, there do appear to be some reassurances given to those of us who have, until now, opposed the project.

I’ve been of the opinion that Cornish taxpayers should not be footing the bill for a Stadium which would be (almost) exclusively for the use of two sports clubs – however much we might want them to succeed and prosper.

But, all other things being equal, if private finance can be found for the project then I’d be very supportive.

Whilst there were promises made by the former cabinet member responsible for the issue, her replacement has not made the same categoric statements.

So what’s new in this paper?

It’s mainly the fact that we have got one stage closer to a commitment from the Council not to be putting any more money into the project.

The three principle partners – Truro and Penwith College, the Cornish Pirates and Inox (the developers) have apparently said that they will be putting up the £15 million or so that it will cost to build.

I’m not yet convinced that we have extracted a firm ‘never’ to the question of more public money, but at least we now have more confidence of where the money will be coming from.

This is a very positive step.

The second key aspect of the report is the news that the stadium will feature either a ‘Desso’ or ’4G’ pitch – both of which are far harder wearing than a standard grass pitch.

The latter is totally artificial and would enable a degree of community use that would not be possible with a purely grass pitch played on by two professional teams.

The only trouble is that the FA currently don’t allow matches to be played on artificial surfaces, although they are considering the issue again.

That’s the positive news, but questions still remain.

First up there’s the Economic Impact Assessment. As I said before, this is simply laughable in parts with claims of £2.6 million extra income for Cornwall and 109 new jobs.

I’ll be pressing for a much more realistic assessment at the scrutiny meeting next week. I don’t doubt that there will be economic benefits, but we shouldn’t be lying to ourselves.

Secondly, there’s the whole range of planning issues. Although the stadium got past the first hurdle, there are a wide range of issues still to be addressed, not least the case being made by Truro Airfield that putting houses so close to a runway used by single engined aircraft may not be safe. I’m quite glad that I don’t sit on a planning committee which will have to wade through these questions.

There is also the mysterious confidential paper which no backbench councillor has yet seen and which might be significant (or might be pretty inconsequential).

But the steps that have been made are positive ones and I hope that next Wednesday gives us some more.

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Cornwall Council’s Conservative Leader says that the members of the authority’s Cabinet should be thought of as volunteers….

He believes they should not be subject to any formal expectation of how often they need turn up to work – despite each taking home more than £28,000 of taxpayers’ money.

I wrote to the Leader back in August after I received complaints from a member of the public and a voluntary sector organisation about a particular cabinet member being absent for the whole summer.

I asked Cllr Robertson if he could tell me what expectations are placed on cabinet members for their work hours and how much holiday was allowed per year.

I also asked him to tell me how much holiday each cabinet member had taken over the last two years.

In his reply, Cllr Robertson said:

“Councillors are essentially “volunteers” who receive allowances to compensate them for the time committed and the responsibilities they undertake.”

It is certainly true that legally councillors are not employees in the normal sense.

But when cabinet members each receive £28,828.91 from the public purse (and the Leader receives £34,660.93), surely we should be setting some sort of expectation on them in terms of the hours or days that they work.

The public would certainly expect some sort of monitoring of how their money is being spent.

I used to work for Southwark Council which was, at the time, a joint Lib Dem/Conservative administration.

Each of the executive members there had an expectation of full time council work and they booked holiday time like normal employees.

It was not forbidden for them to have other jobs, but if they did they received proportionately less in terms of allowances.

Cllr Robertson said he thought it would be ‘inappropriate’ to have such a scheme in Cornwall.

If it is felt appropriate in Southwark (and other authorities around the country) to ensure taxpayers’ money is spent wisely, why is it not here?

Just to avoid misunderstandings, I do believe that the Council’s Cabinet members should be paid a special responsibility allowance and we have an independent remuneration panel which decides on the correct level.

The change I want to see is for cabinet roles to be seen in practice (if not legally) as a full time job with expectations of working hours and holiday allowances

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Cornwall Council’s parking machines in Launceston are continuing to rip-off drivers three weeks after I was promised that the practice would be put to a stop immediately.

When the parking hours were changed on May 9th, the ticket machines should have been altered to reflect the new times. However some were not and so drivers can find themselves paying for time which is supposed to be free. When combined with the very poor signage advertising the change in hours, drivers are finding that they have been ripped off by the council many times over.

I reported this mistake to the Council and had a meeting with a senior parking officer on July 6th at which he assured me that the machines would be corrected immediately.

Yet this afternoon Cornwall Council’s rip off ticket machines are continuing to charge for periods when parking is free and failing to issue tickets which allow drivers to park into the following day. The ticket I bought in a test purchase is shown in the photo on the left.

I’ve written to the Council’s Cabinet Member for parking, Graeme Hicks, asking him why this fault has still not been corrected and asking him to issue a formal apology to drivers in Launceston who have been ripped off in this way.

It seems seems that Cornwall Council’s parking service will stop at nothing, both fair means and foul, to get money out of drivers.

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Opinion: from Lib Dem Cllr for Launceston Cllr Alex Folkes

There’s a story in today’s Western Morning News about two people who have driven from John O’Groats to Lands End in an electric car.

Unfortunately, the story seems to be lifted directly from a press release – as there is no attempt to challenge some pretty outrageous claims.

The piece says:

“It took them just over two weeks to reach their southerly destination. This was the first end-to-end trip of the UK in a production electric car. It was completed in a similar time to that of a petrol vehicle, except their journey was completed with zero emissions.”

Hang on a minute…. I know it’s a long way from the far north or Scotland, but the normal time for a car to do the journey is hardly two weeks, particularly as teams of cyclists manage the feat in just ten days or so. In fact, sticking to the speed limits, the journey takes about 15 hours by car.

The problem, of course, is not the Tesla car itself which has a top speed not far off a regular petrol sports car.

The problem is that the range of the vehicle without re-charging is about 160 miles at most.

After that you need to plug it in overnight unless you are lucky enough to own a special high performance charger.

Electric vehicle technology is probably part of the future for road transport, and refuelling can be pretty cheap.

But we shouldn’t kid ourselves that it has any practical use outside of cities at the moment.

What did you think of this piece? Good isn’t it? Launceston’s own Alex Folkes blogs every day and has won national awards for it. You can check him out HERE

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Julian Peck says second home owners should be taxed

Topical Opinion from News reader and Looe hotelier Julian Peck

Cornwall does not want second homes – period.

Those moneyed people who wish to have a house here should pay for the privilege.

I’m not jealous of the wealthy, as I have some money of my own.

But if second home owners can afford to pay, then so they should, and at an average rate of £6,000 per year.

If they do not want to pay, then they can sell the house.

You can’t blame local people for selling up: but you can blame the system.

It’s a system which allows a family’s home, the residence of a family living and spending here in Cornwall, to become an unused second home used two weeks a year.

Second homes have decimated this impoverished county.

They have caused unemployment: think of the closure of Pubs, Shops, Post Office, Schools and Police Stations.

When all those services have gone – the final nail in the coffin is the bus service, which packs up leaving no-one wanting to live here full time because they can’t get out without a costly car.

Now if the council was brave enough to CHARGE £6,000 per second home – rather than give the owners a council tax discount – in one foul stroke they would earn the county £76million.

That’s almost three times the £26m their top economic officer is suggesting raising with a ‘Bed Tax’.

With that kind of money, they could discount the often crippling Council Tax and Business Rates imposed on the people and businesses who do contribute by living and working here.

The rich people who want the luxury of a summer home would be paying towards making Cornwall an even more attractive place for the rest of us to live – and I think they’d pay willingly.

If you have a product that people want, normally, in the commercial world, people sell it for the maximum they can.

People want their Cornish second homes – so tax them for it.

If they say it is not a second home and that they let it, then it is a business – and they can pay the same rates any other business does.

Even if we lost the second homes: it wouldn’t stop wealthy visitors coming into the county.

They’d just book hotels – which create jobs, pay VAT, and contribute to Cornish society – rather than taking liberties with it.

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