Agan Tavas , the society for the protection of the Cornish Language, has launched an exciting new competition for Cornish speakers and writers.

The Pewas Perghyryn Lyenyeth Kerneweck award for literature was announced this month, and it’s hoped it’ll attract entries from the Cornish literati for many years to come.

The award’s in honour of Cornish writer Michael Palmer, who died in 2005

Michael wrote short stories, novels and verse in the Cornish Language.

Mr Palmer’s widow Margaret and daughter Jane were present at the Agan Tavas annual meeting to officially launch the award.

The trophy was designed by Niall Timmins of St Erth Praze.

We hold this competition every year and everyone is welcome to enter.

We’re specifically looking for work that is publishable, so we want contributions of more than 2000 words.

It could be a piece of original prose, like a short story or a novel, or maybe a book of poems.

At the moment we are also considering the translation of literature into Cornish from other languages, a play in Cornish would also be acceptable.’

October 1st 2013 is the closing date; to find out more just click HERE.

Or f you’d prefer an entry form through the post just send an SAE to the Secretary, Agan Tavas, Rozteag, Higher Tregenna Road, St Ives, TR26 2AU.

Tweet

On Thursday 27th September, the new pressure group “Our Cornwall” was launched in Truro.

It is campaigning against the over-development of the Duchy, which it states is leading to “massive estates on green-field sites, soulless car-dependent suburbs, more traffic congestion, more pollution, declining town centres and irreversible environmental damage.”

I have great sympathy with the aims of the group.

Over the last two years, 4,450 new housing units were built in Cornwall and, as of April 2012, there were 15,460 extant planning consents.

And that does not even include the 1,500 new houses and flats recently granted to the west of Truro.

I believe planning is clearly out of control.

Hundreds of planning permissions are being given and yet, because of government policies on housing and a lack of investment, little is happening to reduce the housing costs for local people earning local wages in places like Cornwall.

On Friday 28th September, I chaired the most recent meeting of Cornwall Council’s Planning Policy Advisory Panel, which focused on the housing target for the next two decades.

The officers had tabled a report which recommended that the number of new housing units to be built between 2010 and 2030 should total 49,000.

They also argued that the housing target was based on population projections from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), an assumed decrease in average household size and a range of other factors.

They were supported by a handful of councillors, who argued that if the target was too much lower it would not get through “inspection” by the Planning Inspectorate.

Apparently, under the Coalition’s new “localism” agenda, local councils can make important political decisions as long as they are fully in-line with what central government wants.

But not all councillors agreed with this view.

At the meeting, I presented an alternative proposal for a lower housing target of 38,000 with the support of Camborne Councillor Dave Biggs.

We knew that between 1991 and 2010, 42,000 new properties were built in Cornwall.

And evidence from the census and other sources is now showing that levels of in-migration are slowing, while household size is not decreasing as previously predicted.

So, we could not see how the Council could justify or evidence such an increase in the levels of house construction over previous decades.

We also argued that the priority need was not open-market housing, but delivering genuine local-needs housing, and we will continue to demand that the policies are rejigged to work for ordinary people.

For the record, members of the Panel voted by six votes to three voted to throw out the 49,000 target and to recommend to the ruling Cabinet that the housing target for 2010-2030 should be 38,000.

Tweet

Insultingly, they call on campaigners to reject the politics of “victimhood and isolationism” by ditching the campaign for a Cornish Assembly, which they claim has “failed.”

They claim that winning significantly greater powers for Cornwall within the UK, through our own Assembly, would be isolationist and divisive.

But they also argue that Cornwall’s unitary authority could take on some extra responsibilities which would protect Cornwall “as a distinct, self-confident but outward-looking and enthusiastic part of the UK.”

What hypocrisy!

The MPs clearly refuse to see Cornwall as a historic Celtic nation, and object to the fact that the other constituent nations of the UK have won significant levels of home rule for their countries.

They lack ambition for Cornwall, and the MP’s claim to want more powers for Cornwall Council is contradicted by how the Conservative / Liberal Democrat Government is undermining the structures of local government with their cuts.

Let us not forget that democracy in Cornwall has been failed by central government over the last 15 years. 

Cornwall’s demand for an elected Assembly – which included 50,000 signed declarations – has been ignored.

Our structures of local government were trashed by the last Labour Government, in cahoots with Cornwall’s Liberal Democrats, when they cut the number of principal councillors from a total of 331 to 123 in the new centralised unitary authority.

And now we have the Tory and Liberal Democrat cuts which are undermining democracy further.

The lack of funding means councillors are forever being presented with a “graph of doom” saying that the cuts mean we will simply not be able to fund basic services and this is being used as a cloak to promote the privatisation of public services.

So much for democracy in local government – but this is no doubt what George Eustice and Sarah Newton actually support.

Tweet

Deputy PM Nick Clegg announced yesterday the strange dream was over as he admitted no-one could agree on the constitutional reform behind the move.

Nationalists and protestors welcomed the news.

Cllr Dick Cole explained: “It has been widely  reported that David Cameron has withdrawn Conservative support for plans to create a directly elected House of Lords.

“Senior Conservatives have told the Liberal Democrats that it would be impossible to get enough Tory support to force the measure through the House of Commons.

Senior Liberal Democrats are meanwhile reported as saying that “Lords reform is effectively dead” but have warned that the move would have “consequences”.

This is very good news for Cornwall.

Hundreds at Saltash for anti-Devonwall rally from Graham Smith on Vimeo.

He went on: “It is great news that the creation of a cross-Tamar parliamentary seat will almost certainly not happen and that the territorial integrity has been safeguarded for Westminster elections.

“But it is important that the Prime Minister makes a prompt announcement that the Boundary Review has been curtailed with immediate effect.”

Cllr Cole was particularly scathing about the two Coalition parties.

He added:“Many people campaigned hard to oppose the Devonwall seat and we must celebrate the news that it is not going to happen.

“But the Boundary Review has only been ended because of primitive and self-interested political bartering between the Coalition parties.

“We must never forget that both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats voted through the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, which would have created a Devonwall seat.

“We must never forget that both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Ministers dismissively ignored our opposition to Devonwall.

“And we must never forget that over 95% of Coalition MPs opposed an amendment to protect the integrity of Cornwall, and that five of Cornwall’s six MPs supported the finalised Bill with their votes.”

Tweet

Morgawr has heard that officers of Devon and Cornwall Police had a busy old day during Thursday 17th May.

Apparently much time was spent rushing around to make enquiries of anyone who has been overheard criticising the irrelevance of the Olympic Games, and the associated Olympic Torch journey through the Duchy.

Following Queen Betty’s high profile snub of Cornwall during her recent Diamond Jubilee tour which extended only as far (or as close, depending upon which way you look at it!)  as Exeter, the increased attention has been commendable.

One of several individuals visited by teams of two officers hadn’t even heard of the Olympic Torch which was hardly surprising considering its failure to excite much public interest whilst another said that a comment that if it came near Redruth it ‘might end up in Cash Converters’ had been a joke.

Perhaps because of this possibility, the torch took a rather obscure and ‘out of the way’ journey making sure to avoid Camborne and Redruth.

Officers of the law were less than impressed and remained stoney faced throughout their inquiries.

Just another sign perhaps of just how out of touch the Devon police force is with that dry sense of Cornish humour?

Meanwhile, early reports of police repression which appeared in local corporate media mysteriously disappeared overnight.

Posters comments beneath articles which had been less than enthusiastic were also been heavily edited.

And so the torch passed through, without incident: except of course for:

Cornish signs being painted over at Land’s End

A St. Piran’s flag being pulled from the hands of the ultimate torch bearer in Cornwall

So that’s alright then.

Now in July, the commercial razzamatazz of the torch is long forgotten in Cornwall but the police investigations have continued following several complaints by members of the public in the Duchy.

A recent Freedom of Information request made of the police revealed that 18 homes had been visited in the run up to the relay.

How many of these 18 lodged formal complaints is not known.

What is known, however, is that the Internal Affairs Department of the Devon & Cornwall Police have been kept busy.

Tweet