A Lanson Boy

What councillors can do

2012-01-29T13:07:00.002Z

This story is about the good that local councillors can do. The story is about Amy Kitcher, a Lib Dem councillor from Merthyr in South Wales and the help she was able to get for a former serviceman in her ward who found himself living in a bare flat with nothing other than a sofa and thin blanket and £63 a week to live on.

The ex-soldier - Paul Thomas - was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and was finding it very tough to make any progress but thanks to the local community has been able to get the essentials of life and to set up a charity for other service leavers in Wales.

Good News - Adoption of Kensey Valley Meadow starts

2012-01-28T13:42:00.002Z

Ever since I was elected two and a half years ago, I have been trying to secure the adoption by Cornwall Council of the roads and open spaces of the Kensey Valley Meadow development. Adoption means that local residents receive the full range of council support and services.

Now, finally, the adoption of the first phases of the estate has happened.

This has been a hugely long and complex road with any number of deadlines set and then broken. I don't believe that local residents have been well served by either the developer - Elan Homes - or the council which allowed Elan to get away with breaking its promises.

The adoption to date only covers the highways on the top end of the estate. The lower part of the estate has now entered a one year 'maintenance period' after which it should be adopted. The open spaces will also be adopted in about a year.

I'm very glad for local residents and proud of what the new residents association and I have managed to achieve.

Launceston's Annual Debate

2012-01-27T14:27:00.003Z

Last night saw Launceston's annual debate at the Town Hall. More than 70 people came to discuss issues of interest to our town and the surrounding villages.

We had invited Graeme Hicks, the Cabinet Member for Highways and Transportation, to come along with Tim Wood the Assistant Head of the Council's Transportation Service because of the keen interest in buses, roads and parking. Many thanks to Graeme and Tim for coming.

The first key issue was buses. Graeme was able to tell the audience that the decision had been taken to abandon planned cuts and the existing network will be safe for the next two years. The questions he received included:

concern about the lack of routes to Bodmin, Truro and beyond;
asking for the town bus service to be extended to properly include Stourscombe and Kensey Velley Meadow;
concern about what will happen in two years time;
anger at the decision by the council to take a Government grant intended for community bus services and use it for other services

We then moved onto the issue of parking and two key themes came up:

the high cost of season tickets which is forcing many business owners, residents and workers to abandon car parks and use the streets or private areas
the hourly charges which are hitting town centre businesses

Finally we moved onto the issue of streets and highways and there was concern about:

parking on zigzag lines
20mph limits outside schools
the lack of investment in Launceston's roads for many years

After Graeme and Tim had left we discussed the core strategy and town framework. These are important consultations on the issue of development in Launceston and across Cornwall over the next 20 years. I've covered the key issues here.

After two years in the chair of the Community Network, for the coming year that role will be taken by my colleague Adam Paynter who represents Launceston North on Cornwall Council.

Hopefully there will be a big report in next week's Cornish and Devon Post on the meeting.

Cornish Post Offices saved from further closures by the Liberal Democrats

2012-01-27T14:11:00.004Z

The future of Post Offices in Cornwall has been secured by Liberal Democrat Business Minister, Ed Davey.

After ending Labour’s Post Office closure programme, which saw more than 7100 Post Offices disappear in their 13 years in office, Ed Davey has announced that a ten-year deal between the Post Office and the Royal Mail has been reached. The deal gives additional certainty to subpostmasters across the UK and covers the full range of Royal Mail products available at post offices such as first and second class post, parcels, air mail, recorded and special deliveries. Before Labour came to power, the Conservatives had a closure programme of their own and many thousands of branches were closed under their rule.

The deal adds to other recent progress for the Post Office, with extra Government cash kicking in, new national and local government contracts won, successful piloting of new models to transform many local post offices and improvements in financial services offered.

Labour left Royal Mail in a terrible mess and it is Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government who have finally put Royal Mail and the Post Office on a secure footing that mean that we will never see a repeat of the devastating closures that happened under the last government such as Newport in Launceston.

Local MP Dan Rogerson said:

"Post Offices are a vital part of our communities and are the lynchpin of our towns and villages. I’ve been campaigning with residents over the last few years to keep local post offices open and to re-instate branches such as the newly re-opened post office in Port Isaac."

“More than 20 million people visit a Post Office every week to manage their finances, renew passports for holidays or to send letters to loved ones, and hundreds of thousands of pensioners rely on them every day for their pensions.”

Commenting further, Business Minister Ed Davey MP said:

“A year ago I set out a radical plan to transform Post Office’s future, with £1.34bn of Government support and investment but without any closure programmes. Since then the Post Office has made good progress to become more competitive, building on its strengths.

“While it will take several years to turn round the Post Office’s finances, it’s increasingly clear the reforms are beginning to work. The 10-year deal struck between Royal Mail and the Post Office will give subpostmasters and others greater confidence. The signs are extremely encouraging for the future of the Post Office.”

Under the Labour Government, Post Office numbers fell by more than 7100, or 38%. In March 2010, there were 11,905 post offices in the UK. Post Office Ltd remains in 100% public ownership. A new Board has been appointed to oversee the Post Office as an independent business with certainty about its future.

Nick Clegg makes the case for lower taxes for lower paid

2012-01-26T10:53:00.004Z

This morning Nick Clegg is urging the Government to go further and faster in raising the threshold at which people start to pay income tax.

One of the key demands made by the Liberal Democrats when we entered the coalition was that the tax threshold should be raised. Our manifesto commitment was that no one should pay income tax on the first £10,000 that they earned. This was accepted by the Conservatives and is being instituted in stages with the first £1000 rise happening last year and another £630 rise planned for this April.

In today's speech, Nick Clegg says:

"Today I want to make clear that I want the coalition to go further and faster in delivering the full £10,000 allowance, because the pressure on family finances is reaching boiling point. These families have seen their earnings in relative decline for a decade, compared to those at the top. That has accelerated since 2008, with lower real wages and fewer hours at work."

The Lib Dem demand is for lower and middle earners to be as higher priority than the super rich - which is why the Lib Dems have vetoed any suggestion of abolishing the 50p rate for top earners and have ensured that the tax on bank profits is enforced.

That concern for tax cuts targeted at the lower paid is also why the Lib Dems in Cornwall proposed the council tax freeze for the coming year.

Why Twitter is good (and banning it is bad) - UPDATED

2012-01-26T09:50:00.003Z

Following on from yesterday's rumpus, it's important to consider why councillors, the press and public should have the right to use twitter during council meetings. I think there are three core reasons - it can help debate, it's an issue of free speech and it engages the public in what happens in their name.

The first of these reasons was, ironically, shown earlier in yesterday's Cabinet meeting - before Cllr Robertson arrived. An item on the agenda concerned solar farms and the council's desire to invest the remaining £10m of their planned green energy pot into schemes that would both cut carbon emissions and save money. This was a scheme started by the former Lib Dem county council and carried on by Cllr German and the current cabinet with our support. It was halted by the Government's decision to cut the feed in tariff (ie the amount paid to green electricity producers) and the paper before cabinet looked at what we could do in the light of that news.

But at the very start of the meeting I saw the news via Twitter that the Government had lost its appeal against the decision that their ending of the higher feed in tariff was unlawful. A new cut off date was now set and this is five weeks away. This gives the Council a new window to invest in schemes.

This news changes the nature of the debate. Had we not known about it then the Cabinet discussion would have been a waste of time as it was based on the wrong, out of date facts. So twitter saved the council time and money.

The second reason that twitter is a good thing is an issue of free speech. When a council decides to suspend the right to comment because it thinks that some of the comments being made are 'inappropriate' we are entering very dangerous territory. Remember that this ban, as stated at the time by the Leader, applied to the public and press as well as to opposition councillors.

Before the Leader announced the ban, he read out a few tweets from earlier in the meeting. The two of mine that he chose to read concerned the fact that he and two colleagues had chosen to meet with a journalist from a local government magazine that has shortlisted Cornwall Council for five awards rather than attend cabinet. I'm delighted that Cornwall is being recognised, but I questioned the Leader's priorities in this instance.

The absence of the Leader and Cllrs Ridgers and Toms was highlighted by the pretty shoddy treatment of three public questioners who had come to ask about plans for transport for people with disabilities. In Cllr Toms absence (and that of any senior officer from his department) it was left to Cllr Rule to read a prepared answer. No follow-up questions could be heard and the questioners left very disappointed. Cabinet Member Cllr Burden called their treatment 'disgraceful'. (Cllr Toms subsequently apologised to the questioners).

It was apparently ok for Cllr Burden to use the word 'disgraceful' in the meeting (and presumably on the webcast) but any tweets by opposition members on the subject led to an instant ban.

So if 'inappropriate' tweets are to be banned, who is to make the decision? Will the Leader be sitting as Censor-in-Chief during meetings or will there simply be a blanket prohibition of any dissent? Are we entering the time of Kim Jong Alec?

And then there is the issue of encouraging political debate.

There are six different political groupings within the Council and, whilst we will agree on a lot of things, there are fundamental issues of policy over which we disagree. The Cabinet is a committee made up of just ten members from two of those groups and, whilst other councillors can attend and are usually allowed a brief chance to contribute to debates, we do not have the same rights as Cabinet members. So twitter (and blogs) are the way that different opinions can be put forward.

I don't seriously believe that anyone takes what opposition councillors tweet as being the policy of Cornwall Council and it is quite clear that other opinions are available. It is also the case that each councillor is legally responsible for what they say, whether in person or on-line. It is not an issue for the council unless the individual purports to speak on behalf of the authority. A large number of people follow the council's webcast and read the comments being posted on it. Many of these are re-posted by council officers on Cornwall's own website. So people can hear what the cabinet are saying and see what others think at the same time. I think that's a pretty healthy state of affairs, but it appears Cllr Robertson would like only a single viewpoint to emerge.

I understand that some will say that councillors should not be using twitter during meetings because they should be concentrating on the debate. I think it is a matter for each councillor to judge to what extent they can multi-task. In the case of yesterday's Cabinet meeting that decision is pretty easy. As we are not members of the Cabinet and have no vote, we cannot be distracted from our duties. But there were members of the Cabinet who were tweeting and sending emails and even one who was resting his eyes for a period but still felt able to vote on the issues at hand.

In my case, I have found it very easy to follow and participate in a debate whilst also having twitter open. I'd draw the line if I was in the chair or if it was a quasi-judicial committee such as licensing or planning, but with tweeting allowed from a court room and in Parliament, why not Cornwall Council?

UPDATE - Steve Double has commented on this story to the BBC and (shock, horror) I couldn't agree more with what he is quoted as saying.

Council Leader orders twitter 'ban' during meetings

2012-01-25T15:35:00.006Z

I don't know what pushed Cornwall Council Leader Alec Robertson over the edge today, but he turned what should have been a good news day into one where he will get no end of bad press.

The reason was his attempt to institute a twitter ban during the Cabinet meeting.

After being absent for the first part of the meeting, Cllr Robertson arrived and proceeded to read some of the tweets that had been posted by Cllr Jeremy Rowe and myself. He then claimed that the council's new broadcast policy meant that he had the power to ban the use of twitter during meetings and said that he was doing so, banning the public and media as well as councillors.

As Western Morning News Deputy News Editor Scott Harrison tweeted:

Sad thing about @CornwallCouncil meeting's many good points is they are now lost to story about new Twitter ban. Blame Alec. #ccwebcast

Indeed. There were many excellent decisions taken during the meeting, including on buses and the culture white paper. But my twitter timeline and, indeed the Council's own webcast page, were then dominated by discussion of the Twitter 'ban'. Just as former Radio One DJ Mike Read attempt to ban the Frankie Goes To Hollywood song Relax spectacularly backfired, so I think this will too.

I'm certain that Cllr Robertson has got it wrong in terms of the constitution. He claimed to be invoking the new broadcasting policy which was designed to open up council meetings to media filming. Instead, he claimed that the new rules prohibit tweeting without express prior consent. I have no doubt that the legal officer will force Cllr Robertson to back down.

But what does it say about the fabled culture of 'openness and transparency' that Cllr Robertson talks about the whole time? Just look at the response provoked:

@PenzanceSeafront tweeted "Tweets from CC meetings by cllrs are informed & interactive summaries of what happens."
WMN writer Graeme Demianyk tweeted "Good old @CornwallCouncil inching toward another PR disaster by ban on Twitter at County Hall."
And @APenzanceBoy said "It's the best way we have to keep up to date with what's going on #keepupthegoodwork"

And that's the point of why some of us tweet during debates. We don't pretend to hold the only acceptable point of view - other opinions are available. But we do want to put our view across for those who want to read them.

Of course the media have been asking Cornwall Council for the reasons for this ban. The official response:

"Cornwall Council has not banned the use of social media such as Twitter from its meetings.

The Council is fully committed to openness, transparency and engagement including via social media platforms such as Twitter.

In the case of today’s meeting, the Leader was very concerned about the inappropriate nature of some of the tweets posted by Members and their potential impact on the reputation of the Council. He expressed these views during the meeting and instructed Members to refrain from making these inappropriate comments.

Today’s meeting of the Cabinet, as with all meetings of the full council, the Cabinet and strategic planning was webcast, not only on the Council’s website, but also via local broadcast media. This demonstrates our ongoing commitment to making our meetings more open and transparent."

If this is the beginning of a furious backtracking then it is to be welcomed. But it does imply that what is at stake is not the principle of tweeting during meetings, but a dislike of the content of what is said.

It's no longer a blanket ban - which might look luddite but is the same rule for all - but censorship of individual members of the opposition.

And crucially, it's not what was actually said during the meeting.

If readers want to decide for themselves what Cllr Robertson actually said then they can watch the webcast when the replay goes up (so long as it doesn't develop 'technical problems').

Cornwall proposes 50p flat rate for 'free' bus journeys

2012-01-25T11:37:00.005Z

Cornwall Council's cabinet today confirmed that no bus routes would be cut for the next two years but also voted to ask the Government to be allowed to pilot a flat rate 50p charge for 'free' bus pass holders.

The first decision is, of course, very welcome as I blogged yesterday. But there is a high degree of concern that we will be going through the process again in just two years and routes may be under threat again then. The instinct of other authorities has been to cut. As Cllr Hicks (an avid reader of this blog) pointed out, Conservative run Somerset County Council has cut 25 rural bus routes recently.

The flat rate charge is very concerning for me. Although it was only introduced by the last Labour Government, I know that there are many pass holders who simply could not get about if they were forced to pay a charge. Of course there are other pass holders who are relatively well off and could afford to pay. Some have apparently been calling Radio Cornwall to say so. But the option of them paying for some, or all, journeys has always been there. There is no compulsion to use a free pass even if you have one.

But for those older people and those with disabilities who cannot afford to pay, the ability to get about for free using a pass is essential. And as my colleague Cllr Pat Rogerson said, you often have to use more than one bus to make a journey. So a person travelling from a village outside Bodmin to Treliske Hospital might have to use eight buses on their return journey and to pay 50p each time.

The impact on the poorest people in our society has not yet been assessed, but already the Cabinet member is mentally spending the £2.9 million he reckons that such a scheme could raise. I hope that the Council reconsider this proposal and will consider that it should be altered to retain the right to free travel for the poorest pensioners and people with disabilities.

How many new homes does Cornwall need?

2012-01-24T20:05:00.003Z

Perhaps the most important single document of Cornwall Council's four year term is currently out for public consultation. The Core Strategy will guide development across Cornwall for the next 20 years.

At the heart of the document is the question of the level of growth and how the new homes should be distributed across the Duchy.

The major constraint is the National Planning Policy Framework. This is the government document that dictates that there should be a certain level of growth across the UK. This in turn means that Cornwall Council's subsidiary document must also propose some growth. But how much do we want?

I'll put my cards on the table. I'm in favour of growth - but only growth for a purpose. With around 31,000 people on the housing waiting list, we need to provide more affordable homes in all parts of Cornwall. But we need to be smarter than we have been in the past about the size of these properties and where they are built. In particular, we need more larger properties for the social rented sector. I understand that there is just one five bedroom house in Launceston, for example, despite there being at least six local families who need that size of property (and many more from across Cornwall).

We also need to make sure that there are affordable homes built in some of the villages. We cannot rely on new homes in order to make local facilities sustainable. But we can be certain that, without new families moving into our villages, local shops and pubs and schools will continue to struggle and close.

And the type of properties being built needs to be looked at too. Recently, social housing - in fact almost all new developments - have been boxy little houses and flats on the outskirts of town. Often with no facilities or bus connections, these can become cut off commuter villages. We need to make sure that when there is new development it comes equipped with all the local facilities to make the new householders part of a thriving community.

Part of the urge to approve lots of new homes - and supermarkets - is that the council can get planning gain from the developers. Technically known as section 106, these are developer contributions to local facilities and projects. In theory, these are meant only to offset the additional burdens on the local community caused by the development. But in practice, there has been more and more reliance on s106 to provide the basic infrastructure including schools and replacements for tired old leisure centres and community buildings. Developers, naturally, don't like paying for anything that puts a dent in their profits, but I think that the council has a duty to try to extract as much community benefit as possible from any development. In particular, because the more we get from one developer, the less we feel the need to approve the next one unless it is right for the local area.

And just as we should ensure we get the most bang for our buck in terms of s106, so councillors need to get as much affordable housing as possible. The official policy of the council is to get 50% affordable housing in developments of 2 or more houses across most built up areas. In some of the largest towns and in Truro, this is relaxed to 40% of developments of 5 or more. And there is further detail about the mix of affordable housing that should be delivered.

So far, so good.

But very often developers will complain that they cannot afford to build if the affordable housing level is put so high. The so-called viability test is used to try to get permission with a lower number for affordable homes. In general, I don't buy this. Although we need social housing, it should not come at any cost. The idea that, say, 15% of something is better than 50% of nothing has been accepted far too often. A green field can only be built on once and we should hold out a bit more for the full allocation. If some developments don't go ahead as a result then that is not the end of the world.

So whilst we need growth in order to provide affordable housing and community infrastructure, getting the right level of developer contribution for each development should mean that we can limit the number of new houses and the number of new supermarkets being built.

So how many houses should be built?

The figure being proposed in the core strategy contribution is 48,000 new homes over the next 20 years. As various people have noted, this is likely to take Cornwall on the path towards a population of more than a million by the end of this century. True, not many of us will be around to see that milestone surpassed. But even so, the development on the way will put a huge strain on roads, railways, schools and all the other bits of infrastructure in Cornwall. Not to mention the loss of lots of green space.

Some have suggested that this figure is too low and should be 52,000 or 57,000 or 60,000 or more. In the very unlikely event that Cornwall suddenly needs more houses during the course of the 20 years then the core strategy is not a barrier. The rules state that the proposed number of new houses can be increased but cannot be cut.

Personally, I think that the balance of the need for new affordable homes set against the fear of concreting over Cornwall leads to a total of around 32,000 to 38,000. But the bare figure is not the end of the story. Each community should be asked to consider how many homes it can accommodate and where they should go. In part, this will come as part of the new neighbourhood planning function of the Localism Act. But Cornwall Council should resist the urge to meddle and impose unrealistically high figures on each and every community.

If you want to have your say on the core strategy - whether you agree with my view or not - you can do so online here.

For more coverage of this debate, Cornish Zetetics posts regular opinions.

Santorum - The Obama conspiracy theory candidate?

2012-01-24T11:37:00.004Z

Rick Santorum appears to be trying to inherit the mantle of Donald Trump by fostering the conspiracy theories surrounding President Obama.

But where Trump had his concerns over where the President was born, Santorum also adds the President's religion as the video below demonstrates:

As Andrew Sullivan of 'The Dish' notes:

"Santorum knows that the president is a Christian. And he lets this lie pass. He also doesn't challenge the lunacy of Obama being ineligible for the presidency because he was born in Kenya"

After President Obama released his birth certificate to prove Trump wrong, the businessman had nowhere to go and withdrew from the battle to be President. Will the same happen to Santorum?

Lifeline bus u-turn welcome but questions still remain

2012-01-24T09:47:00.003Z

Cornwall Council has performed a very welcome u-turn and has decided not to cut local bus routes. The previous plan was to save money to cover a shortfall in the current budget by cutting many lifeline routes which are relied on by people to get to work, college or to see family and friends. More than a quarter of supported routes looked set to disappear within a couple of months.

This reversal is, of course, very good news. But there are still questions concerning the routes where no tenders have been received and how this scheme is being paid for. We are also concerned that there is no certainty for the network beyond the next election and no plan for how the network can be expanded.

This u-turn has only come about because of the huge opposition from local communities and the campaign led by Cornwall Liberal Democrats. We highlighted the damage that the original proposal would do to local communities and the unfair criteria by which the potential cuts were selected. Local campaign groups have sprung up across Cornwall to save their local services.

But the fact that the Conservatives could have considered such a massive cut to the bus network shows that their priorities are all wrong. They simply do not understand that buses are essential for people to get to work or to college, to see family and friends or even to get to hospital.

Cornwall Liberal Democrats would guarantee that we won't cut any supported local bus routes in Cornwall and we will be working with local communities to identify how to expand the network. Cornwall Council has a vision for better local transport, but the current administration seems determined to ignore that vision.

Although the number is not revealed in the Cabinet papers, I am told that there are seven routes which cannot be re-tendered at this time either because the bid came in too late or the price asked for was 'ridiculously high'. I also understand that there were technical issues with one operator which meant that the bids made by them couldn't be awarded. Four of these are in the former North Cornwall, two in the former Caradon area and one in former Restormel. Council officers say they are "confident that they will get tenders in and that services will run" but until the tenders are awarded there will remain a degree of concern.

Perhaps the bigger concern is that this is merely a series of cuts delayed. The Cabinet papers state categorically:

"That the Cabinet notes that the new arrangements are for two years only, and that further efficiencies and new ways of delivering services will need to continue to be developed."

So local buses are safe until after the next election. But after that the Council is quite clear that there will need to be another review and further efficiencies will need to be found. That is because saving the bus routes is set to cost £1.2 million a year which is coming mainly by delaying repaying the current year's over-spend.

Which brings us back to how we got into this mess in the first place - a hole in the budget that none of the administration thought was significant and didn't bother to do anything about until halfway through the year.

In response to Jude Robinson...

2012-01-22T11:01:00.005Z

Jude Robinson, Cornwall Council's only Labour member, has written a post arguing that Cornwall would be wrong to freeze council tax this year because it would create bigger problems in the future.

Rather than me try to summarise and get it wrong, read her post here and then come back and let me tell you why I disagree with her.

Welcome back.

In essence, this argument boils down to who pays for the necessary increase in council tax that needs to be imposed in order to protect essential services.

That increase - after taking account of efficiency savings - is 2.5%.

That Labour argument appears to be that it should all be borne by the taxpayer through a council tax increase.

The Liberal Democrats say that we should take account of the Government's offer of a grant equivalent to 2.5% of council tax - about £6 million. If we took that grant then we could freeze council tax for another year, saving local people anywhere from £20 to £60+.

Jude is quite right to point out this government grant is for one year only and will disappear next year. So what do we do next year? Ideally, we keep council tax as low as possible again whilst guaranteeing not to cut front-line services. How much of an increase in council tax this will cost can't be predicted yet. But if it takes an increase of more than 2.5% then we should consider that.

A higher increase might sound bad - but combined with this year's freeze it make sense in terms of money.

Suppose a family's council tax this year was £1000. Next year, with a 2.5% rise it will be £1025. The year after, with another 2.5% rise it would be £1050.63.

So over the next three years:

According to the Lib Dem plan, a family might pay £1000+£1000+£1050.63 = £3050.63

According to Jude's preference, a family might pay £1000+£1025+£1050.63 = £3075.63

So Labour would cost you £25 more but wouldn't have a single extra penny in the bank - so there would be no extra services.

We cannot predict what level of council tax we will need in 2013/14 to keep the current level of frontline services, but I hope that this shows that for the coming year it makes sense to accept the Government grant and freeze council tax. Cornwall cannot afford to look a £6 million gift horse in the mouth.

Latest Community Chest funding

2012-01-19T08:54:00.005Z

I realise that I haven't posted in a while about the grants that I have made from my community chest. This is the money that all Cornwall Councillors have each year (currently £2,195) to support local groups with projects and activities.

Cornwall Council has recently received a freedom of information request asking for details of how all councillors use their grant and the complete list shows just what a good scheme the community chest is. The entire list will be published by the council shortly, but my grants are as follows:

Cedar Grange - Equipment for art group project £162.40
Cedar Grange is one of the largest care homes in our area. They wanted to set a new art group and my funding helped to buy some equipment to get them started.

Chamber of Commerce - Christmas Lights £500
Chamber of Commerce - Late Night Shopping £500
The Christmas lights and late night shopping are key parts of attracting people to Launceston during the winter months. The old lights needed replacing and, together with my fellow Cornwall Councillors, I was delighted to contribute to some of the new lights last year and to this year's late night shopping fun.

Causley Festival - Publicity £500
Causley Festival - Rap Workshop and Poetry Slam £395
M-Mad - Causley Film Project - £500
The Causley Festival is a relatively new initiative trying to draw visitors into our town and to provide more events for locals. I provided help with publicity in the first year and then contributed towards the costs of an event aimed at younger people in the second. I also provided funding to M-Mad, a creative arts project for young people, for them to produce a film of the second year aimed at attracting future sponsorship.

FLIC - Hire of films, equipment, town hall and advertising £200
When I ask people what they most want to see change about our town, the most common answer is a cinema. Hopefully, we might get a permanent cinema at some point in the future. Until that time, FLIC do a great job putting on shows each month which are attracting bigger and bigger audiences.

Gwynngala/LAFF - Display Boards £500
Both Gwynngala and Launceston Arts for Fun (LAFF) are very popular groups of local artists. They wanted to buy display boards to enable them to show off their works.

Amateur Boxing Club - Headguards £500
Des Charnock and his team do a great job at the boxing club and have produced some very talented boxers. However, in order to compete, the youngsters need proper head guards which conform to official standards.

Neighbourhood Policing Team - Coach Park artwork £500
I was approached by local police officers asking for help with a project in conjunction with the Barefoot Games to provide a legitimate outlet for local street artists. The Town Council kindly offered the use of the coach park wall and I helped to pay for the materials.

Launceston Foodbank - Set Up £500
This is a great project which has been set up by a group led by Keith Roberts of Central Methodist Church. Since I posted about it, it has opened its doors and helped a number of clients. With more and more people struggling even to put food on the table, the foodbank is a facility we need (even if we wish we didn't). I hope that it will become an organisation that is the top of everyone's supporting list over the next few months.

Rifle and Pistol Club - Air rifle £395
The rifle club has been operating for many years and approached me because they want to attract more young members. They wanted to buy a lightweight air rifle in order to teach new members how to shoot and how to treat air weapons and firearms safely and with respect. Having seen the expertise on offer at the club I was more than happy to support them.

If your organisation could do with help, email me at alexfolkes@gmail.com and I will send you the forms you need to complete to gain Cornwall Council approval.

This is the press release put out by Launceston Rifle and Pistol Club:

Launceston Rifle and Pistol Club is welcoming more young members after a council grant helped fund a new lightweight air rifle.

Under Cornwall Council’s community chest scheme, each councillor is allocated £2,195 each year to support local projects run by voluntary and community groups, some of which goes to help young people’s leisure activities.

Launceston Rifle and Pistol Club (LRPC) invited Launceston Central Councillor Alex Folkes to visit the club and learn about its work with young people. He agreed to allocate £395 from his community chest for a lightweight Air Arms S200 air rifle to allow more youngsters to take
part in the sport, and was so impressed he even decided to join the club himself.

Councillor Folkes said: “The community chest scheme is a very valuable way for councillors to support local groups and projects in their area. I'm very glad to have been able to support such a wide range of projects over the past two and a half years.

"Launceston Rifle and Pistol Club is a long-established and dedicated group seeking to bring in more young members. I was happy to be able to support them with a grant.

"In a rural area, many young people have access to air weapons and firearms. Teaching them how to use them safely as well as storing them securely is a vital lesson to learn and the club does a great job, all under the auspices of local police checks and registration."

LRPC is the home of 18-year-old Sam Hooper who learned to shoot at the club and came top of the South West Smallbore Rifle Youth Championship in 2011.

The club was established around 75 years ago and moved to its current location in a disused quarry in 1961. It offers the chance to shoot air rifles and air pistols, as well as .22 rimfire rifles.

Secretary Alan Savory said: “We’re very grateful to Cornwall Council and Alex Folkes for this grant which will allow the club to accept and train more young members.

“The only way the club is going to carry on is by getting the younger generation involved. I’ve been shooting since the early 1970s and it’s given me tremendous satisfaction and pleasure over those years. I’ve always been one of the top club shooters but I look forward to a time when some of the youngsters come and knock me off my perch.

“I’m prepared to give as much time as I can to the younger generation to encourage them.”

LRPC made the news last year when member Dave Wood was awarded the Lord Lieutenant’s Trophy for his hard work and dedication to the club.

Club Chairman Bernie Masters said shooting was inexpensive as the club could help newcomers with the kit they needed.

“Shooting offers young and old, men and women, boys and girls all a chance to compete with each other on equal terms in a sport that demands discipline, team work, self-control and respect for others,” he said.

Since receiving the rifle, the club has been able to accept two new teenage members who are coached at the club with their parents present. To join the club, which is open to everyone aged 14 and over, call Secretary Alan Savory on 01566 785244 or email launceston.rpc@gmail.com.

Bid to increase councillor special responsibility allowances defeated

2012-01-17T13:02:00.006Z

Cornwall Council has again rejected a proposal to increase pay for three Conservative cabinet support members. The rejection was made by 57 votes to 45 at today's full council meeting.

The debate was meant to be about setting in train the process for agreeing allowances for the new councillors elected in 2013. The authority has consistently agreed by large majorities that they don't want to consider an increase mid-term and Lib Dems stood on a manifesto commitment of not raising allowances during this council. But it is right that the process of agreeing allowances for the four years from 2013 should be started.

However, as I blogged before, there was an extra clause asking for a quickie review of all allowances - particularly special responsibility allowances. The Leader was quite open about the reason for this - that he thought there should be an increase in the money paid to the three Conservatives who act as Cabinet Support Members.

The council as a whole (with a large number of rebelling Tories) agreed that any money for the CSMs should be considered as part of the overall review to be implemented in 2013 and not before.

The other interesting debate was over a Lib Dem proposal to ask the independent remuneration committee to seek to recommend and allowances scheme which would help to promote a more even balance of councillors. At present Cornwall Council is only 28% female and massively biased towards those of retirement age or older. I understand there are just eleven under the age of 45. Many of the administration front bench voted against the proposal to try to promote a better balance.

(Disclosure - I currently hold the post of chair of the Council's Electoral Review Panel. This role does not carry a special responsibility allowance.)

Sophia for Miss Cornwall 2012

2012-01-16T23:19:00.002Z

A huge amount of good wishes to Launceston girl Sophia de Rochefort who has made the shortlist for Miss Cornwall 2012.

Part of the contest is a public vote which opens on February 14th. Forgive me if I link to that occasionally when it opens.

In the meantime, if you are on Facebook, please 'like' Sophia's fanpage.

Council Tax - mea culpa

2012-01-16T22:41:00.004Z

Tomorrow morning Radio Cornwall will be running a story on council tax and, specifically, the delay I had in paying mine.

I haven't talked about it before now because I view a person's private financial matters as being personal - just as the rest of their private life should be. However, I understand that others, including Radio Cornwall, see it as an issue worthy of coverage when a councillor is late paying their council tax.

The law is pretty clear. A councillor is disqualified from voting on budget issues if he or she is two or more months behind on their council tax payments. I have never fallen foul of that rule. However between budget votes I did fall behind on a number of occasions to the extent that legal action was taken against me and I deeply regret that this was the case. My excuse, such as it is, is that since I was elected in 2009 I have lived for the most part on my councillor allowance of £12,100 per year and I put other bills before council tax. But it is wrong to fall behind and I apologise to the people who I represent for letting them down in this way. I can assure anyone who cares that I have paid my full council tax for the current year and won't fall behind again.

What this episode has done, however, is shown me how many people have difficulty paying their council tax. For some (like me) it is a foolish mistake. For others though, the bills are just too much to cope with in the current climate. As a council, I think there is more we could be doing to ensure that those in genuine hardship are helped to get any support and benefits to which they might be entitled. The schemes are there, but we sometimes fail to make people aware of them. Cornwall Council needs to raise tax to provide crucial services, but we have to ensure that families do not suffer disproportionate hardship as a result.

I know I'm one of the more overtly political of the elected members at county hall and some will no doubt see my news as just deserts. If that's the case, then so be it. I'll continue to work as hard as possible for the people who showed their trust in me by giving me this position and I won't be letting up in my work for them. But whilst my campaigning may occasionally be hard, I promise I'll never resort to attacks on a person's personal circumstances or private behaviour. There are different views as to what is best for Cornwall and there should be a passionate debate. But that debate should not descend to attacks on the private lives of your opponents.

Splashing the cash on celebrities

2012-01-16T12:11:00.003Z

How much is it worth to have a celebrity present a load of trade awards? That's the question for Cornwall Council after the Western Morning News revealed that the authority, via the Cornwall Development Company, has paid TV presenters Kirsty Allsopp and Ben Fogle £6,000 each to present the annual tourism awards in 2009 and 2010.

It should be noted that CDC has said that this amount was covered by commercial sponsorship and so did not cost taxpayers anything directly.

But how much does having a celebrity matter? It's obviously nice for the award winners to have a (vaguely) famous face in the photos and tourism is a very important part of the Cornish economy. But if the sponsorship was not found to cover the costs, would it be considered a good use of taypayers' money?

In the interests of fairness...

2012-01-13T17:01:00.005Z

A week ago I posted a list of questions I had regarding the economic case for the stadium for Cornwall which had been passed to me by the Council. I also passed these on to the Council themselves and they have sought answers from the consultants.

This is the response they have sent which I reproduce below:

"Dear Jordan

Re: Response to Cllr. Folkes regarding Economic impact assessment for Cornwall Stadium

In response to the comments regarding the Economic Impact assessment in the Phase 2 report (Oct 11) made by Councillor Folkes, we have looked over the detail again of the Five Lines Consulting assessment and feel that overall it provides a realistic and robust overview of the potential economic impact of the stadium.

Whilst the analysis is at a high level at this stage, there has been extensive consultation with the clubs and other potential occupying parties and users of the stadium to suggest that figures given relating to attendances, usage, ticket sales, prices and additional spends etc. are realistic and robust. It would be useful to understand which ‘number of areas’ that Cllr. Folkes refers that do relate back to evidence provided by the clubs and end users.

It could be argued that the deadweight analysis be undertaken again now that there is more certainty in terms of the occupiers of the facility, however, the new stadium effect on attendances should not be under-estimated. A number of factors determine attendance at sporting events – from ticket price to quality of facilities, size of the catchment area, historic and current success levels. Typically, however, there is a consistent increase in attendances on moving to a new stadium of up to 47% in year 1 of operation. These increases have broadly been sustained beyond Year 1, through to Year 5, with only minor decreases. Taking a more prudent approach and removing from the analysis any cases where clubs previously had identifiable latent demand or played their first seasons in a new stadium immediately following promotion or relegation, there is an again a consistent average attendance increase of 37%. This is therefore considered to be the ‘new stadium effect’ (IPW… research into the ‘new stadium effect’ at English stadia since 1993).

In terms of potential jobs created within the clubs we feel that these are realistic estimates at this stage and have been discussed with the clubs albeit they are predicated by the Pirates achieving Premiership status (which a new stadium will allow them to achieve, by being admitted because they meet the ground regulations, if they win the Championship) and the club therefore becoming a full time operation.

I hope this provides sufficient feedback for the time being and if further detail needs to be provide for the E&E OSC then please let us know.

Best regards,

Dougal Nicholls
Associate Consultant
IPW..."

I'm grateful to the consultants and officers for providing this. I don't think it answers all the questions posed, but we will be able to have further discussion when the matter comes to scrutiny - now likely to be in February.

Five to fight for Lanson Town Council vacancy

2012-01-13T13:27:00.002Z

Five candidates will be contesting the Launceston town council election for a seat in South Ward made vacant by the sad death of Olver Harris.

The five are:

Ashley Crapp, standing as Community Volunteer - Independent
Maurice Davey - Liberal Democrat
Anna Duke - no description
Leighton Penhale - no description
Susan Roberts Alfar - Labour

I'm obviously backing Maurice Davey, the landlord of the Bell Inn and a great local bloke. But I'm delighted to see such interest in the seat. Last time there was a by-election there was no contest and John Conway was elected unopposed. The time before when there was a vacancy it was filled by co-option.

Next May, all the seats on the town council will be up for election - 7 in South Ward, 7 in Central and 2 in North. I hope that those who are not elected this time will choose to re-stand and that we can encourage a wide range of others to put themselves forward. Local democracy is important. It's no sleight on the current town councillors, but it is always better to have a contest than not!

Calling the Republican bluff

2012-01-11T22:23:00.003Z

One of the America's richest men, Warren Buffet, recently complained that he wasn't paying enough tax. He pointed out that he was paying a lower marginal rate than his secretary.

Fair enough, said arch conservative Senator Mitch McConnell, if you are feeling guilty, send in a cheque. Another Republican Sentator, John Thune, sought to introduce a new column on tax returns to allow the rich the option of paying more to help ease the national debt.

Now it looks as though Mr Buffet (worth around $45bn) is going to call the Republican bluff. He's offered to match every contribution that the Republican senators give, dollar for dollar. And he's prepared to make a special case for Senator McConnell, paying $3 for every $1 from the politician.

Somehow I have a feeling that Mr Buffet is going to keep his money in his pockets.

The return of Castle Rock

2012-01-11T13:42:00.003Z

Castle Rock is back this year. It's happening on July 7th and confirmed bands so far include The Patrick James Pearson Band, The Sum Of, Motherload and Suite Noir.

You can find out more information on their website or on Facebook or Twitter.

I understand that the events may not be confined to just the Saturday, so check the website for updates on a regular basis.

Scotland's Independence Contest - Salmond knocks out Cameron, faces tougher task with Moore

2012-01-11T11:00:00.003Z

The BBC got it right yesterday when they promoted the issue of the potential Scottish independence referendum to the lead slot in their broadcast - above the announcement of the High Speed 2 rail line. Both are big stories, but the future of the UK is surely worthy of top billing. The Speaker of the House of Commons got it wrong by giving the railway top billing.

The debate will rumble on for many months or years (as will that over High Speed 2) but already seems to have settled into a reasoned conversation between SNP Leader and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and Scotland Secretary Michael Moore.

Alex Salmond is a very canny political operator who has already seen off the slightly hysterical interventions by PM David Cameron. The PM wanted to bring forward the date of the vote and even floated the idea of allowing Scots living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to have a say. But his basic line was a dummy spitting claim that Scotland could only act through the UK Parliament, threatening legal action to enforce this.

Salmond, on the other hand wants to see the vote take place later in his term and makes the quite reasonable claim that the SNP victory last year gives him a mandate to hold a vote. He knows that a bind

It took the calming influence of Lib Dem Mr Moore to ensure that the writs didn't start flying quite yet. He made it clear that a vote will happen and that it will take place after negotiations between Westminster and Holyrood. He batted away the SNP desire to allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote saying that he fully supported such a change, but it should be made because it is right, not just to give the SNP a tactical advantage.

In calming the waters, Michael Moore has ensured that he has his job for the long term. He cannot be sacked or promoted without it being seen to be an indictment of the anti-referendum campaign.

The other name that will be at the forefront of the debate appears to be former Chancellor Alistair Darling. It is felt that a 'big beast' is needed to take on Salmond and the Labour man is the favourite for the role. As such, he was trotted out for the Today programme this morning. But why take the risk of a Salmond vs Darling popularity contest. In a debate about what is right for Scotland (and for the UK as a whole) the discussion should focus on ideas, not personality.

Superfast broadband now available in St Stephens

2012-01-10T19:41:00.004Z

A quick post to note that the superfast broadband network has now been extended to the St Stephens area of Launceston.

This is part of the gradual roll out across Cornwall and is the second part of Launceston to be hooked up (the first being the top end of Western Road, St Johns Road and part of Pennygillam). If you live in the area and want to check whether you can get superfast broadband, click here.

Unfortunately, I still don't know when other areas will be connected, but as soon as I find out, I'll post here.

Romney likes being able to fire people

2012-01-09T19:37:00.004Z

Finally, the candidate focus in the US republican primary is turning its attention onto runaway favourite Mitt Romney and he suddenly looks vulnerable.

The story of the primary to date has been how one challenger after another has risen up in the polls, overtaken Romney and then fallen away through a mixture of media scrutiny and the sledgehammer of un-regulated attacks ads paid for by the slush fund loosely connected to Romney.

First there was Michelle Bachmann, the Tea Party favourite who won the opening bout when she topped the poll in the Ames Straw Poll last summer. Admittedly, the straw poll is all about paying for food and drink and getting your supporters to turn up to a state fair... (Only in America). But then she fell to earth with a crash to the extent that she scored just 6% in the actual Iowa caucuses and departed the race.

Next up was Pizza Company Exec Herman Cain. The man who wanted to be President but didn't really understand what was going on in Libya. He too became the favourite only to crash when multiple claims of sexual harrasment were made by former employees.

And then there was Rick Perry - the Governor of Texas who took 'Oh Shucks' populism to a new level. He entered the race to a huge fanfare but then fell away as the voters realised that electing someone more stupid than George W Bush would be, well, stupid.

And Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives who caused so much trouble for Clinton but who seems unable to translate that into primary success. He too saw his stock rise only to be attacked for his work as a lobbyist when he left office.

Finally there was Rick Santorum. A former senator renowned for getting pork barrel deals for his area - which is great if you are running for re-election in your state, but a little hard to explain to the voters of the other 49. In a party that is defined by religious zealotry, Senator Santorum is something special (he's more catholic than the Pope). With perfect timing he came within 8 votes of actually winning Iowa by the simple expedient of mounting his charge too late for anyone to do anything about it. The trouble is that then he became the focus of the attacks and he had no money left to rebut.

In the background the whole time have been two other candidates. Ron Paul is a 76 year old libertarian gynaecologist. His ideological purity is unimpeachable. The trouble is that his policies are hated by more than half of his party and he refuses to rule out running as a third party candidate if he loses. Paul will come second or third in every primary thanks to his fanatical band of supporters. He just doesn't have enough crossover support to win. He does have the best adverts though.

And then there is Jon Huntsman whose bid was fatally flawed by having worked for the Obama administration as Ambassador to China and by being nice. He's the other moderate in the race. But when Romney is leading by such a margin, there's no place for the other moderate. Huntsman has staked his whole run on doing well in this week's New Hampshire primary. in effect, he's this week's Santorum.

But with all the other candidates a busted flush, it has become time for the attention to focus on Romney. His problem is that he ran a venture capitalist company for a while. This business invested in other firms and hoped to make a profit. The trouble is that, when things didn't work out, people lost their jobs. And sometimes when things did work out people lost their jobs too. Today Romney made his most serious gaffe when he announced:

"I like being able to fire people"

That's capitalism for you. But it sits a little uneasily in a country which is facing mass unemployment. How can the republicans attack Obama over job losses when their presumptive candidate likes sacking people? And their other main attack line - the apparently 'socialist' decision to introduce a health care safety net - is blunted too by Romney's decision to have exactly the same in Massachusetts when he was Governor.

Finally there appears to be a chink in Romney's armour. It's not enough for any of the other candidates to hope to exploit. But if it runs for a while and Romney's popularity tanks as that of the others has done then it may just be enough to see one of those waiting in the wings (Jeb Bush, Tim Pawlenty or even Sarah Palin) decide to throw their hat into the ring.

Buses to be centre of annual community debate

2012-01-09T16:52:00.003Z

The subject of local bus services will be at the centre of the annual community network debate taking place in Launceston Town Hall on 26th January from 7.15pm. I'm delighted that Cabinet Member Graeme Hicks and Assistant Head of Transportation Tim Wood will also be present.

The community network is the forum for Cornwall Council, local town and parish councils, agencies like the police and health service and the public to come together to discuss issues of importance to our town and the local area. We meet formally four times a year with a themed meeting on a key issue.

But once a year we also try to hold a much bigger meeting at which anything (and any subject) goes. This is held in the town hall and we hope that as many members of the public as possible can attend.

One of the key issues at the moment is the threat to local bus services. This is an area which Graeme hs political responsibility for and Tim is the lead officer. The detailed proposals for local services will be published next week and debated at a scrutiny committee on 25th and the community debate will be the first chance for the public to have their say. We've therefore decided to make bus services the centre of the debate and invited Tim and Graeme to come along.

Of course the debate isn't limited to just talking about buses. As the Cabinet member for highways and transportation, I'm sure that Cllr Hicks will be able to discuss issues such a parking and road safety as well as the Council's wider stance. We're also happy to hear the views of local residents on any issue of public services.

So if you live in Launceston or one of the surrounding parishes and have a view on local bus services or any other issue, please come along on the 26th.

Tories try to up councillor pay (yet again)

2012-01-09T15:44:00.002Z

Whilst the Liberal Democrats on Cornwall Council want to discuss a new scheme of low interest loans for low income families whose homes need urgent repair, it seems the Conservative and Independent administration is more concerned about their own pay.

An item on the council agenda recommends that an independent remuneration panel be set up to look at the full range of councillor pay for after the next election. That's fair enough. Everyone has always agreed that the scheme should be looked at once every four years and there's no problem with setting things in motion now ready for May next year.

But wait. What's this extra line in the report?

"2. the IRP be asked to conduct a swift review of the existing Members’ allowances, and, in particular, the extent and level of Special Responsibility Allowances with a view to making appropriate recommendations to the meeting of Full Council on 27 March 2012"

Special responsibility allowances are the extra money paid to those councillors who hold special positions - members of the cabinet and chairs of committees in the main. The need for a 'swift review' of such payments is not really clear to me and isn't explained in the report. Last time this issue came up it was an attempt by Cllr Robertson to get extra money for three of his Conservative chums. That move was resoundingly defeated by the full council. We will see next Tuesday if this is another attempt to get the same thing.

The Liberal Democrats have always been clear in our opposition to any change in allowances until after the 2013 election and have repeatedly voted against administration attempts to increase pay.

Lib Dems propose low interest repair loans to keep vulnerable families in their homes

2012-01-09T15:21:00.003Z

Next Tuesday sees another regular full council meeting - the time when all 123 members get together to discuss key issues of policy and budget. It's the time when we have the chance to quiz all the cabinet members as well as to put forward ideas about how to make life better for local residents.

For next week's meeting, the Liberal Democrats are putting forward a motion in favour of a low interest loan scheme for householders who are on a low income and facing large bills for repairing their home.

It's always better for people to be kept in their homes rather than moving into social housing. Not only is it cheaper for the council, but it is less disruptive for families and it doesn't deprive another family on the waiting list of their place in the queue.

But there are some families on low incomes who are facing huge bills for repairing their homes - perhaps for a new roof or to deal with dry rot. If they cannot afford to pay for the work then they are at risk of becoming a burden on the council. Introducing a low interest loan scheme will help them to afford the repairs and to keep them in their home.

Such a scheme could be introduced without costing council taxpayers anything - the loans would be low interest, but still enough to cover the cost to the council of borrowing. In addition, they would require a charge against the property - like a mortgage - so that in the even of a default the council would get its money back.

I hope that this scheme will be seen by all councillors as a good way to save money for the authority and to keep families in their homes.

No you may not call your child 'Anal'

2012-01-07T13:21:00.003Z

Way back in 2008 I wrote a post about silly names given to children and it's proved to be one of my most popular posts - even though I suspect most people are actually looking for public transport between Edgware and Victoria. Now officials in New Zealand have released a list of names they have refused to allow parents to give to their children.

There are no specifically banned names, officials insist. But the rules state that they must be less than 100 characters long, not appear to confer a position on the child (so Princess and Justice have both been refused on a number of occasions) and cannot be offensive. In the latter category, some parents apparently wanted to bestow the name 'Anal' on their newborn - a case where government prevention seems the least they deserve.

Numbers ('89'), Roman Numerals ('II' and 'III') and keyboard symbols '*' and '/') are banned, as are single letters ('J' is popular, presumably among Simpsons fans) and religious references (lots of 'Lucifers' have been saved).

There are a few of the names which sound like they should be adopted by bands - 'Yeah Detroit' and 'Keenan Got Lucy' are great - but nothing trumps 'Tulula Does The Hula From Hawaii', or Kay as she now prefers.

Cornwall EMA - a welcome scheme (but still with problems)

2012-01-06T16:18:00.005Z

Cornwall Council’s Tory-led administration seems to have got quite touchy about any criticism of their plan to introduce a Cornish EMA or Bursary. Cabinet member Neil Burden even went to the extent of commenting on this blog about it.

A policy idea that appeared to start with a desperate attempt to come up with something interesting during Conservative Party Conference week has turned into a scheme which, whilst still significantly flawed, is an example of what Cornwall Council can do to help the less well off.

That's not to say that the process has been an easy one. I don’t think there is anyone who opposes the principle of additional support to 16 to 19 year olds who need extra help to study. But the details of the scheme have been very slow to emerge and a lot of the information that was released raised many concerns and questions.

Today we had the in-depth study of the plans and I'm very glad that most of the concerns have been addressed. There was concern that this funding was only being made available to those studying academic courses and that those on vocational courses would be ignored. In fact the funding will go to all types of level three study which includes a range of vocational study. Of course, many pupils do not study at this level but there are other forms of support available to them. They won’t be missing out but this fund should help to address the gap that did exist for higher level learners.

There is also the concern about how the money will be shared out. The money is being allocated to the schools and colleges on a per-pupil basis and they will be responsible for passing it out from there. This means we have to trust the providers to divvy it up fairly. I do have that trust, but I want to make sure that it is pupil-responsive. As an example, two students at Truro College might have very different needs. One might live nearby and need help with buying books. The other might be traveling all the way from North Cornwall and help with travel costs might be the top priority. Can the providers guarantee that they will be flexible enough to cope with both sets of needs? The distribution criteria will be submitted by the providers to the Council in the summer (before the scheme starts) and so there will be a chance to be reassured on this issue then.

There were a couple of issues surrounding cross-border pupils. We sought assurances that the money would not be given to schools or colleges on the basis of students from Devon (or further afield) who study in Cornwall and that those who come to Cornwall to study would not receive the benefit of this scheme. We got satisfactory assurances on both these matters.

However, there is still the issue of pupils from Cornwall who travel to Devon to study. In most cases this is not a real choice - it so happens that the nearest provider of their chosen course is located there. There was a lot of resistance from the administration to changing this. Quite rightly they don’t want to set up a cumbersome and costly administration procedure and want to hand the allocation process over to the providers. But that comes at a cost of excluding Cornish pupils studying in Devon. There was a lot of unease in the scrutiny committee about the failure to assist these young people. The implication is that if you need the money then you might have to travel hundreds of extra miles per week in order to receive it. In the case of those for whom the new funding is the difference between studying or not, this places a huge extra burden on them which is not going to be helpful to their studying. The committee agreed to ask the administration to keep looking for a solution - but the failure to do so until now, although regrettable, shouldn’t stop what is otherwise a good scheme.

It's so good that the other major concern is about the fact that this scheme is only being funded for two years. That happens to be the money we have left from convergence funding for disadvantaged 16-19 year olds. But if this scheme is worth doing (and I think it is) then surely it should carry on into the future.

A final point - when this scheme was first talked about, there was the proposal to have both a ‘Cornish EMA’ and a bursary for HE students. For legal reasons, the support for 16-19 year olds can’t be called an EMA and is now known as a bursary. But I asked about support for higher education students and was told that a scheme to help university level students will be proposed in the near future.

Archive and Record Office - North Cornwall need not apply?

2012-01-05T12:34:00.004Z

It looks as though North Cornwall is being ruled out as the possible venue for the new Council Archive and Record Office, despite pledges that all areas will be considered equally.

The new building is needed because the existing archive and record space is overflowing. The records office is underneath Old County Hall in Truro and is bursting at the seams. Thousands of items are having to be stored off-site at cost to the Council. The proposal is also to accommodate the Cornish Studies library - currently in Redruth - in the new building.

I have no preconceptions about where the new building should go. It clearly needs to be on a large site because of the space needed and I have made the point that we should be looking at innovative ideas for how to build and pay for the new facility.

Today we were told of the various criteria that will be used to judge sites and that local town and parish councils are to be asked to put sites forward. My concern is that some of the criteria effectively rule out North Cornwall as a venue.

One of the criteria in the briefing we were given states:

"Is the proposed site easily accessible via car and public transport across Cornwall?"

Obviously accessibility is important, but if this is the question then the answer for every part of Cornwall is effectively going to be 'No' because there is no part of Cornwall which is easily accessible by public transport from all across Cornwall, and the situation is getting worse as more and more bus routes are being cut by the Conservative-led authority. However the interpretation of many in County Hall is that this rule will exclude with likes of North Cornwall and others areas without rail or decent bus networks.

What the Council should be doing is to build into the development a plan of how to make the facility genuinely accessible to all. If the best possible location is Redruth (or Truro, or St Austell) then so be it, but those of us who live in North Cornwall should not be prevented from using it by reason of diminishing bus routes. Alternatively, if a perfect site could be found in Launceston, Bodmin (or Liskeard) then the Council should be finding ways of expanding our public transport network to make sure that everyone from the West can get there too.

We'll see over the next couple of months just how firm the commitment to consider all areas is.

Council taking action on illicit sub-letting

2012-01-05T12:23:00.003Z

There was a bit of national coverage earlier this week as the Government announced that they were considering making it illegal to sub-let a council house. The argument goes that this activity makes it more difficult for those on the housing register to get a property.

I've been chasing up to find out what Cornwall Council does to ensure that this isn't a problem here. Today we got a lot of information from Jane Barlow, the Head of Housing, to whom I'm very grateful.

Cornwall Council says that the last time they had a case of sub-letting was more than 10 years ago and they believe that they have a good network of housing officers as well as lots of inquiries from other tenants so they do not believe they have a problem. I think this attitude is a little complacent but was gratified to find that the authority also co-ordinates with applications for housing benefit and with other databases to keep tabs to ensure that illicit sub-letting doesn't happen.

There are thousands of people in Cornwall on the register waiting for social housing. In many cases they are desperate for new homes. I'm grateful that the council is taking action to ensure that these families are not being held up by illicit sub-letting.

First group should promote benefits of a new franchise

2012-01-04T11:36:00.004Z

The news that First Great Western are applying for a new franchise to run rail services between Cornwall and London is not really a surprise. But the question for the company is what they can offer local passengers in terms of service improvements or price reductions so that we should support their bid.

First Great Western pulled out of their current 10 year contract three years early in order to avoid paying the final tranche of money to the government and in order to seek a longer - 15 year - contract. Why the previous government allowed such a break clause and why they loaded the bulk of the payments from FGW into the last three years of the old contract (so they could be avoided) has never been explained. But it has meant that we enter this period of uncertainty much sooner than expected.

The contract specification is now out for public consultation. FGW could sit back and play no part in this discussion but I think it would be helpful for passengers if they explained what they think they can do to improve the service and how they see costs changing over the life of the new franchise.

Congratulations to three locals on New Year Honours

2012-01-04T10:46:00.003Z

A very belated congratulations to three local people who were recognised in the New Year's Honours list.

Author E V Thompson MBE was kind enough to appear at last year's Causley Festival in the town and is one of the most borrowed local authors from our library.

Andrew Brown now lives near our town after a career in advertising including a spell as Director General of the Advertising Association. He has been made an OBE

But most of all, congratulations to Mary Butler MBE who has given more than 50 years of volunteer service in a wide variety of guises. She is a committed member of the Salvation Army and visits retirement homes and the hospital every week. She also still works part time at the Co-Op in the town square.

All three thoroughly deserve the recognition.

Cornwall Council 'must try harder' on EMA

2012-01-03T16:37:00.004Z

This Friday there will be a discussion on the details of Cornwall Council's plan for a local Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA). Whilst the concept of a Cornish EMA is very good and Lib Dems have welcomed it, we're very disappointed with the details of what is being proposed. The Council can and should do better.

My colleague Graham Walker has made the following statement about the plans:

"We welcome the proposal for a local fund to help the 7,647 16-19 year olds worst hit by the withdrawal of EMA, 90% of whom qualified for free school meals. But the council has been very vague until now about how such a proposal would work. Now that we have seen the details, we are very disappointed. The Council can and must do better for local students and pupils."

"The scheme will only help learners at the highest level of study - mainly academic A-levels and AS-levels. Whilst there are many pupils studying at this level who need help, there are many others studying at Further Education colleges who will miss out. We should not be putting forward a scheme which helps only the most academically gifted, particularly given the additional challenges faced by many FE students."

"The scheme also discriminates against those in the East of Cornwall who study in Devon. There are 500 such students who will be ignored by this proposal. For most, this is not a choice but the only practical option to continue their education. We believe that all students from Cornwall should be considered on an equal basis."

"The administration appears to have drawn up their scheme without talking to young people about it. This is a crucial omission which perhaps explains why the proposed scheme is so weak. Liberal Democrats will be asking the Cabinet Member to consult properly and come back with a better scheme."

On Friday we will see how the administration responds.

Stadium for Cornwall - the economic case that doesn't add up - UPDATED

2012-01-03T15:31:00.005Z

As I've blogged before, Cornwall Council is busy pushing the stadium for Cornwall on the basis of the new jobs it will bring and the boost that it will provide to our local economy. According to the Cabinet Member for Economic Development, Chris Ridgers, the stadium will mean an extra £3 million a year and 109 jobs.

I asked for the basis on which these statements were made and have been sent the consultant's report. You can read the whole thing at the bottom of this post. This document (presumably with others) will be going to a meeting of the Economy Scrutiny Committee in the near future.

I've got a fair amount of experience of sports clubs having worked closely with AFC Wimbledon since their inception up until a couple of years ago and with Launceston Rugby Club since they were in what is now called the Championship. I've therefore been very keen to see how the consultant could justify the very high figures that Cllr Ridgers has been using.

In short, they can't. And in one (small) respect, they don't even try. Because whilst Cllr Ridgers has been saying the economic boost would be £3 million per year, the report only makes claim to £2.6 million.

I've had a close look at the report line by line and, whilst it's impossible to comment on some of the claims being made because of the lack of information given, there are three broad reasons why I think the report fails to justify the claims that it makes:

- there is a massive over-estimate of the amount of new spending
Most of the amount the will be spent at a stadium would have been spent anyway. There might be some new fans (particularly for Pirates matches) and there will be use of the stadium on non-matchdays but neither is enough to justify the claim that the total spend will be four times as much as is spent now.

- there is no hard evidence of what the clubs spend or the fans want
Assertions are made in the report about the amount of local spending and the potential leakage of money outside the Cornish economy. It should have been possible to talk to the clubs about this and present hard evidence in the report, but this is entirely absent. Also missing are any assessments of the spending behaviour of fans (particularly away fans). An estimate of 5% of the total number of stadium users being from out of Cornwall AND staying overnight seems very high and there is no evidence to back it up.

- the estimates about new jobs are just a joke
The report claims that the Pirates will employ 30 new full time staff and Truro City 20 new full time staff just because they move into a stadium - not including bar, catering or grounds staff. Considering a non-league club of Truro City's standing probably employs no more than two or three people other than in the categories mentioned above, it's difficult to see what these 20 new people will be doing.

You can read my full commentary on the report below as well.

I'm happy to admit I'm fallible and don't claim that my analysis is perfect, but I think it raises significant questions about the amount of weight that can be given to the consultant's report. The fans and people of Cornwall deserve a lot better than blind assertion if they are going to be asked to put their hands in their pockets for a stadium. If a genuinely strong case can be made then that's all well and good, but I think this is a pretty weak case as things stand and I look forward to having the chance to question it at the scrutiny meeting.

Stadium Report - AF Comments

Appendix H - Economic Impact Assessment

UPDATE - MK Cllr Stephen Richardson has followed up and suggested that the stadium project is being proposed more as a CV building exercise rather than because it is the right thing for Cornwall to do. He suggests that, if it were really going to turn a profit, someone would have done this already. He also suggests that this might be something which could be the useful subject for a Cornwall wide referendum. Now there's a thought...

UPDATE 2 - My colleague Graham Walker has put his own thoughts down on his blog - well worth a read.

Twice as many 18 year olds are on Facebook than the electoral register

2012-01-03T12:05:00.004Z

Last month I wrote about the huge number of people in the UK who are entitled to be on the electoral register but aren't. Now comes the news that there are twice as many 18 year old Facebook users than on the electoral register.

I suppose this isn't a surprising statistic - I have yet to meet an 18 year old who isn't on Facebook (although I'm sure there are some, somewhere). But the report says that just 55% of 17 and 18 year olds are on the register.

This report suggests two things. First that the Electoral Commission, local councils and others should be using Facebook and other social media to reach out to young people and get them to register. The best way to reach potential voters of all ages is to go where they are (both literally and figuratively), not expect them to conform to your way of working.

Second, that moves to cut the amount of effort and money spent on compiling the register are misguided in the extreme. It's high time that Nick Clegg came out and confirmed that his initial plans to abolish the annual canvass have been dropped. Our elections must be for everyone, not just the self-selecting few.

There is work that Cornwall Council can do directly on this issue and, using my position as Chair of the Electoral Review Panel, I've asked officers to tell me what plans they have to engage better with young people and other under-registered groups.

Derriford Hospital seeks 'foundation trust' status - UPDATED

2012-01-03T11:55:00.003Z

This morning I went to question and answer session with Helen O'Shea, the interim Chief Exec of Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust (Derriford to you and me), which was mainly about their bid for Foundation Trust status.

There is a lot of concern about the loss of clinics locally with around a dozen being lost from Liskeard and Launceston hospitals over recent months. Ms O'Shea told us that of the clinics they are responsible for, the main loss is a rheumatology clinic as the consultant has become semi-retired. They are looking to replace him and the clinic will be up and running again when they do. The other change is that, to make it viable, the general surgery clinic has been merged with the colo-rectal clinic. These are both reassuring bits of news - but we want to see the rheumatology clinic replaced as soon as possible.

We asked about the other clinics which have been cut and who is responsible but she couldn't answer. It appears that these are run by other trusts, so the investigation continues. There is still a lot of concern about other clinics which have either been cut or could be moved in the future. The NHS talks about delivering more services locally but all we have seen in our area is cut after cut.

UPDATE - Later in the meeting we had the chance to question the Chief Executive of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust who said that they have not cut any local clinics in the East - mainly because they don't provide that many. However, she is seeking to provide more as she accepts that her trust has under-served the East until now. That's great news.

It appears that the responsibility for the lost clinics lies with smaller providers such as Peninsula Plastic Surgery and Probus Surgery - although the latter are hopeful of re-starting their clinic soon.

There was a lot of concern about the proposed number of governors on the new foundation trust. Out of 14 member governors the proposal is to have 8 from Plymouth, 3 from Devon and 3 from Cornwall. There was a lot of concern that, given the respective populations that use Derriford, Cornwall is under-represented. Given that the proposed Cornwall Foundation Trust had proposed just one governor from East Cornwall (since upped to two), it does feel as though our area is being ignored by both sides.

I asked about transport and parking as well. The movement of services to make them more convenient for the trust has a significant impact on patients and our area has very little public transport. I asked if she was aware that Cornwall Council was not counting Derriford as a significant bus destination in their bus review (because it is in Devon). Ms O'Shea said she is aware and has 'had words'. I am glad that she has done so, but now we need an indication from the Council that they have listened.

She also told me that they are this week starting a new contract with a different parking operator which will see more spaces, better signage, pay on exit and no rise in charges - all of which are good.

There's more to Cornwall than the blue bits

2011-12-28T11:22:00.004Z

Visit Cornwall has just released four pretty stunning aerial films of Cornwall in a bid to market our area to people thinking about their summer holidays. But whilst these are great, there seems to be an over-reliance on coast and sea and there's a missing fifth film that should also have been made.

In a sense, Cornwall is a pretty easy area to market to tourists. We have magnificent scenery, the best climate on the mainland and lots to do. But all too often we fall back on the caricature of bucket and spade holidays and surfing. The key task for Visit Cornwall should be to inspire people to come for more than the bits they know about already. That's something that the organisation is sometimes pretty good at, but not this time.

Take the main 'Cornwall from the Air' film above. Out of 42 different shots, there are only six that don't feature the sea. It may be our standout feature, but there's more to Cornwall than the blue bits and we should be trying to attract people for our culture, food, walking and inland scenery as well as surfing, sailing and sunbathing.

In addition to the main film there are also films of the North Coast, South Coast and West Cornwall - but nothing for East Cornwall. I am told that the footage was kindly donated by a partner and therefore the only costs involved were in the editing, but I still think it was a mistake to ignore the East.

So I have asked Visit Cornwall to come up with some ideas about how they can promote East Cornwall (and the inland bits elsewhere) over the coming year.

Pickles gives approval to stadium plans - and so he should

2011-12-24T11:35:00.003Z

The news that Secretary of State Eric Pickles has given his approval to the outline planning permission for the stadium is to be welcomed - even by those of us very unsure about the project as a whole.

Whatever the merits or problems of the stadium as a concept or on the basis of its location, it is right that this should be a decision taken in Cornwall and, so long as the decision is taken in a legally sound manner, it shouldn't be for the man in Whitehall to interfere.

Early in the New Year we are expecting the publication of the long-awaited and much delayed consultants' report on the business case for the stadium a well as moves towards a detaild planning application.

Woburn Road 'village green' application goes ahead

2011-12-24T11:27:00.003Z

I wrote back in the summer about the threat to the green space on Woburn Road. The land is owned by Cornwall Council and an application to build five homes had been put in despite the unobstructed use for more than 20 years for play and dog walking and the wildlife and trees on the site.

The good news is that the planning application was withdrawn and an application to give the land 'village green' status has been received and is now out to formal consultation.

If granted, village green status would recognise that the land has been used as amenity land for a long period and would give a great deal of extra protection against future development applications.

Congratulations to the local residents association for getting this far. I hope the change of status will occur early in the New Year to give local residents a fantastic belated Christmas present.

Camelford Leisure Centre gets £50k lifeline

2011-12-22T16:48:00.002Z

Very good news for the team trying to save Camelford Leisure Centre - they have been awarded a £50,000 grant from Sport England.

The centre is being dumped by Cornwall Council against the wishes of local residents and the protests of the Liberal Democrats. Despite all the waste, the Conservatives refused to try to find the £62,500 per year it would take to keep the leisure centre operating normally.

Faced with the alternative of losing the leisure centre altogether, local people have put together a business plan and sought out various funding streams. The Sport England grant, which will pay for a biomass boiler and solar panels, is the largest, but there have been a series of others. Huge congratulations to Camelford Mayo Rob Rotchell, centre manager Richard Burke and the countless others who have contributed to this success.

Despite this success, the centre has had to cut services with operating hours cut and staff numbers dropping from 8 to 6. That is why the community management option is still seen as being the second best route to save the centre and why I have pledged to put forward an amendment to the budget in February to keep it as a full time part of the leisure trust rather than casting it adrift.

Free parking Wednesdays in Falmouth during February

2011-12-22T16:43:00.003Z

It's interesting to see the efforts that Falmouth is making to attract shoppers out of peak season. They are planning to offer free parking in two Cornwall Council owned car parks on Wednesdays during February.

This initiative has been sparked by the Business Improvement District (BID). In Launceston we will soon be seeing a parking refund offer whereby shoppers can get their parking money back if they shop in local stores.

I'm glad that Cornwall Council is now more open to this sort of scheme. The recent report by Mary Portas on the state of the high street picked out high parking costs as one of the things that drives customers to out of town supermarkets.

Another reorganisation at Cornwall Council

2011-12-21T18:22:00.003Z

Cornwall Council has just announced that it is going through yet another management re-organisation. In an email sent out to councillors, staff and the press late this afternoon, they say that they will be combining the Corporate Support and Economy, Planning and Environment directorates and making the director of the latter redundant.

The Chief Executive says in his message to councillors:

"I have been reviewing our organisational structure in the light of the Council's budget discussions and decisions, and in the knowledge that the UK's continuing severe and prolonged economic downturn will mean further pressure from Government on the public sector.
While we have made impressive progress in delivering efficiencies within the Council, there are undoubtedly further opportunities to reduce our costs even further.

I am keen that we develop a strategy for 'Place', which integrates our approach to living and working in and enjoying and sustaining the natural and built environment in Cornwall. This will require some changes to our structures and in recent weeks I have been discussing with the Corporate Leadership Team (CLT) the impact of the changes that have already been implemented and those that are anticipated.

Many of the recent changes have affected the Environment, Planning and Economy Directorate (EPE). In the last year accountability for the Alternative Service Delivery Project for Neighbourhood Services and for the Green Cornwall Programme transferred to the Communities and Chief Executive's Directorates respectively. We have just commenced a review of the management of economic development which will be moving to the Chief Executive's Department.
In this context, I have discussed with Tom the possibility of a redundancy situation arising and to assist the organisation, he has agreed to take voluntary redundancy from his post as Corporate Director of EPE."

This announcement throws up more questions than it answers. Why is there yet another round of restructuring and reorganisation being announced in the week before Christmas?

If this has been planned for some time, why did neither the Chief Executive nor Leader even hint at it when they were interviewed by the Corporate Resources Scrutiny Committee just a week ago? Was this a decision by the cabinet or by the Chief Executive and, if the latter, was the Cabinet even consulted before the changes were announced?

These continual reorganisations always have a cost and we think it should be made clear how much these changes will cost the Cornish taxpayer, both in terms of any pay-offs and any other costs that arise out of the continual rearranging of deck chairs.

The Environment, Planning and Economy Directorate is facing challenging decisions over public toilets, parking and buses amongst other things. But this change creates a vacuum at the head of the department when certainty is needed.

Finally, is this the end of the changes or is Cornwall Council to be in a state of permanent revolution?

Disabled Facilities Grants - long, slow progress

2011-12-16T12:17:00.004Z

The huge delay in providing adaptations to enable people to carry on living in their own homes was under discussion at the Communities Scrutiny meeting today. The delays are such that some people die before the changes are made to their home.

It's not a simple issue and it has been a problem for Cornwall Council and its predecessors for many years. Over the past year performance has improved, but it's hard to see the amount of need disappearing any time in the near future.

To give you an idea of waiting times, the time taken simply to get an assessment has been cut from 118 working days to 60 working days - but that is still three months. Once the assessment has been done, the works themselves can take up to 310 working days on average to complete. That's the figure for the biggest jobs. The waiting time for the smallest jobs still averaged 160 working days.

As I said, the performance recently has improved and this could be something to do with more money being put into the service. This year the total budget is about £6.5 million compared with about £4.2 million previously.

But the amount of money due to be spent in the future is still under review. The service says it has an agreement to spend up to £10 million over the next three years and hopes to make a further £6 million of efficiency savings. But averaged over the three years, this is actually a cut. That's why I proposed a recommendation to the Cabinet asking for a minimum budget for each of the next three years equivalent to the current year's spend. Unfortunately this proposal was defeated by a single vote and a more watered down recommendation asking for 'enough money to be spent to meet need' was agreed instead.

This is an area which should be a priority for our council. If there continues to be a backlog and people are dying or being forced to move out of their home before the work is done then we will have failed.

How will Launceston develop - your chance to have a say

2011-12-15T21:32:00.003Z

For the past year, a group of town and parish councillors, together with local Cornwall councillors has been working on a plan for how our town and immediate surrounding area can develop over the next 20 years.

We have been putting together what is known as a town framework plan. It's the first stage towards a legally enforceable document to ensure that when a developer wants to build, it is the sort of development we want and in the place we want it.

We've had the support of experts in traffic management, the historic environment, infrastructure and utilities and we've conducted site visits to possible development areas. The final results have been put together and there will be a formal public consultation starting in the New Year.

As part of this, there will be a full day consultation in the Town Hall on Friday 20th January from 12 noon to 7pm. Everyone is invited to come along to have their say.

Pirates accept they cannot be promoted this season

2011-12-15T12:39:00.004Z

Dicky Evans, the owner of the Cornish Pirates, has just put out a statement accepting that the club will not be playing in the Premiership next season. He says that the proposed stadium will not be built in time, and with no suitable stadium, the club cannot be promoted.

I think this was bowing to the inevitable - however much of a disappointment that might be for supporters.

Although I do not support the use of public money for a stadium, I fully support the ambition of the Pirates to be in the Premiership and that means having a suitable venue to play - a stadium with a much bigger capacity than the Mennaye could ever manage. Having the Pirates in the Premiership would be good for Cornwall (and even good for my team, the Cornish All Blacks).

Even with a deal involving using Home Park in Plymouth for a few games at the start of the season, the potential for having a stadium up and running within 12 months seemed ludicrously ambitious. So far only outline planning permission has been achieved and a huge number of key issues have been reserved. And we still have no idea how the construction will be funded. The financial woes of Truro City simply add to the confusion.

I am concerned that the key advocates of the stadium project, Cornwall Council (despite neither full council nor the Cabinet ever having actually voted in favour of the project going ahead) may be giving people false hope both about the viability and about the timescale. Mr Evans is far more realistic and I respect that fact that it is he who has sought to calm expectations.

One key line in Mr Evans statement stands out however:

We are also assured that the Business Plan for the stadium remains robust despite the doubt involving Truro City FC and their commitment.

That business plan will be discussed by Cornwall Councillors in the New Year. I hope to be able to publish it sooner than that so that the public can judge for themselves whether it adds up.

Dan Rogerson MP urges calls to the Home Heat Helpline this winter

2011-12-14T13:00:00.002Z

Local Liberal Democrat MP Dan Rogerson is urging people across Cornwall to see if they are eligible for help with gas and electricity bills this winter.

New figures have revealed that around 6,200 households in North Cornwall - and over 33,000 across the Duchy - are entitled to some form of assistance with their fuel bills. That help is worth an average of £250 per household and a free helpline is available for more information.

The Home Heat Helpline is a free service that provides independent advice to people on low incomes on how to get help with their gas and electricity bills as well as other help such as grants for insulation or a new boiler. The number for the helpline is 0800 33 66 99 or you can visit www.homeheathelpline.org.uk.

"Over 6,000 homes across North Cornwall are entitled to some form of support. As the colder weather draws in, anyone who is concerned about staying warm should call the Home Heat Helpline and seek advice.

"I would also ask people to look out for neighbours, friends or relatives who may be in difficulty and make sure that they are aware of the helpline."

Christine McGourty from the Home Heat Helpline also advises people to think about what they can do around the home to reduce their energy consumption:

* turn radiators down in rooms which you only use occasionally
* draw curtains over windows at night to provide insulation for the room
* move furniture away from radiators and heaters to allow heat to circulate around the room
* open internal doors of any rooms which get more sun than others and let the warm air travel around your home"

Six million un-registered voters

2011-12-14T11:11:00.003Z

The latest report by the Electoral Commission on the number of un-registered voters makes sobering reading. It also highlights why we desperately need to retain the annual canvass system and beef up the work done to ensure that everyone entitled to does register to vote.

According to the elections watchdog, there are as many as 6 million people allowed to register but who have not done so. Among the worst affected groups are 19-24 year olds (of whom 44% are not registered) and those who have moved house recently (of whom just 14% are registered).

The switch to individual registration is right because it will help to stamp out fraud, but it needs to be backed up by work to make sure that people register and, key to this, is the annual canvass. Stopping this the year before a general election will have a huge impact on the resulting poll.

The Electoral Reform Society comment on the issue is here and they have got it absolutely right.

Recall elections and why the proposals are wrong

2011-12-14T10:43:00.004Z

The Government has announced today their plans to allow for a 'recall' system for MPs found guilty of serious wrong doing. But the system has been strongly criticised as putting the power in the hands of MPs rather than voters.

The basic premise is that if 10% of constituents sign a petition for recall then an MP would face a by-election. But the government has inserted caveats that mean that the final decision will rest with MPs themselves in cases where the MP is not sent to jail (an MP sent to jail for more than a year is automatically disqualified). Apparently this is to avoid an MP being forced out unfairly or for 'political' reasons. I fear this will mean that MPs from a party (or coalition) with a majority in the House of Commons will be vulnerable but opposition or rebellious MPs would be more likely to face recall.

If recall is to happen, surely there should be a more objective set of rules governing the system. The 10% figures is clearly such a measure, as is the prison term. But there the robustness ends. Let's take the vacillations of MPs out of the equation. I would suggest that it be a matter for the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner to declare whether a breach of the rules is 'serious' (or some other term) and that this should be the means to trigger the recall procedure.

"What do you mean by Truro-centric?"

2011-12-13T18:12:00.004Z

This afternoon Cornwall Council's Leader and Chief Executive subjected themselves to a grilling by one of the authority's scrutiny committees. It was the first time there had been a formal question and answer session of this sort and the first thing that ought to be said is that it was a very good thing. Well done to John Keeling and Dave Biggs (chair and vice chair of the committee) for arranging it and thank you to Kevin and Alec for coming along and fielding the questions. Some will ask why there hasn't been such a session before, but I hope that it can now be a regular fixture in the calendar.

It won't shock anyone to hear that there were no startling revelations today. We heard again the claims about going early and also about the awards that are being won by the authority. The Chief Executive said that winning a single award might be a fluke but winning lots means the council are doing something right. (A commenter on Twitter reacted by questioning whether the best use of officer time was filling in application forms for awards rather than providing services.)

The interaction on twitter which has characterised a lot of Cornwall Council meetings really came to the fore today. With the meeting being webcast, there were lots of members of the audience ready and eager to have their say. One area where Cornwall Council is genuinely ahead of the game is in webcasting the meetings and publishing the comments made on the broadcast page.

Ironically, perhaps the biggest gripe came about the council's communications. In the meeting we were asking why the council often fails to get the response right first time. In the case of both the council credit card story and on the issue of the Chief Exec's expenses for going to London to attend an interview for a job councillors didn't think he should take, there was a perfectly good explanation. But this explanation was not what Cornwall Council put out to the media first time. I think that the council recognises that there are times when it doesn't get the comms right and the Chief Exec admitted that the bad publicity is usually of the council's own making. I thought that this was a bit more mature than the Leader's whinge early on that the local media never reports the good news.

On Twitter the demand from two local papers was for council bosses to make themselves more available to the media for interview. They claimed they never had the chance to question Cllr Robertson. I was able to pick this up and ask the Leader about it and he pledged that his door would always be open. I hope this is a successful outcome for both parties.

At one stage the Leader claimed that various (un-named) councillors who are new media savvy had repeatedly made false statements about the council and that he had a three page dossier of evidence to back this up. I'm not sure what 'facts' he has, but he reminded some of Rafa Benitez at his most paranoid when referring to his dossier on Alex Ferguson.

Another area of contention was the perception that the Council is 'Truro-centric'. This was brought up by my Lib Dem colleague Ann Kerridge. Rather to the astonishment of both audiences, Cllr Robertson asked what was meant by the term Truro-centric. He claimed that he regularly got out and about in Cornwall and that the authority was 'Cornwall-centric'. Via twitter, respondents from all around Cornwall seemed to take the view that the initial perception is just about right. Whether in Penryn, Penzance or Launceston, the feeling seems to be that the council is out of touch with local needs and feelings. I suspect that they even feel this in Truro.

Interestingly, I have just got an email from an officer telling me that both the Chief Executive and Council Leader have declined our invitation to come to talk to the annual meeting of the Launceston Community Network because they do not attend this sort of meeting. I would have thought that a leadership keen to prove that they care about the whole of Cornwall would have jumped at the chance!

I shouldn't try to pretend that there aren't some good achievements being made by Cornwall Council. There are lots of inspections and peer reviews that show that some of our services which were performing badly are now a lot better. And the Chief Exec told us that the council is twice as popular as the government (I'm asking for the details of that survey). But my guess is that although some key things are getting better, a lot of the services which the public think are important are being neglected - and that is where this administration will come unstuck.

If you want to know more or simply want to see for yourself, the meeting was webcast and will be available in archive to watch again (and again) very soon via the Council's website.

Mary Queen of Shops plans for high street revival

2011-12-13T13:29:00.003Z

Mary Portas, best known for the Mary Queen of Shops TV series, has published her report and recommendations for revitalising the high street. She was asked to do so by the government which is concerned about the increasing problems faced by town centres.

Ms Portas' key recommendations are to have affordable town centre parking and 'town teams' to improve the overall offer to visitors. One of the key reasons for the success of out of town shopping centres is that they combine shopping with other leisure activities. The US has known this for many years and most shopping malls have cinemas at their heart.

Cornwall Council is already doing some things very well. The town centre manager previously employed just for Newquay is now providing advice to towns across Cornwall. He gives thoughts on things like co-ordinated offers and town centre refurbishment and has provided good ideas for Launceston among other places.

But on other issues we are still heading firmly in the wrong direction. The key one is parking where Cornwall Council has insisted on yet another 3% rise in their overall take despite the disastrous performance this year.

I think Ms Portas is quite right to point out that traditional high streets are simply not an option for many shops today. A town like Launceston has lots of relatively small units. But the big stores need a large floorspace in order to make any money and so they are interested in out of town areas or not at all. Where our town can really succeed, however, is in its specialist shops. Philip Warren might be the most obvious example, but we have a wide range of independently owned businesses and the potential (hopefully) to attract more as well as some of the national firms that can fit into smaller spaces.

But what Ms Portas makes abundantly clear is that we need a co-rodinated approach to making our high streets work. We can't simply abandon them to 'market forces'.

Filling the grit bins on Kensey Valley Meadow

2011-12-12T10:52:00.006Z

This morning I stepped in to fill the gap in new grit bins at Kensey Valley Meadow after the developer left them less than a third full.

Kensey Valley Meadow residents have really suffered with the ice and snow over the last two years. The hill out of the development means that even a small amount of cold weather can trap people in their homes.

With the road deemed too minor for Cornwall Highways to grit and no grit bins, residents have had no chance to escape once the ice or snow hits. As a result, many people had to miss work and cancel trips from relatives because they could not get out or in. One resident told me that it was like cancelling Christmas.

After two years of claiming that they had no responsibility, the developer, Elan Homes, agreed to provide grit bins this year and promised to fill them. But five of the six were only a third full and the last contained nothing but an empty bucket. I didn't think it was right to put local residents in jeopardy again and so I have paid for all six to be filled to the brim out of my highways budget. The photos show how Elan Homes left one grit bin less than a third full and how full it was after we had finished.

The people of Kensey Valley Meadow have had to put up with delay after delay in the adoption of their roads. The last thing they needed was another winter worrying what would happen if it snowed. Now the grit bins are all full and the Residents Association is in place to co-ordinate gritting the roads and pavements if the ice does come.

The photo at the top shows Residents Association Chair John Belsey (standing on the right) and Vice Chair Mike Childs (on the lorry) with me filling up one of the grit bins on the estate.

Launceston Foodbank opens for business

2011-12-10T12:01:00.005Z

This morning saw the opening of the Launceston Foodbank and their premises on Newport Industrial Estate. The operation was formally opened by Mayor Rob Tremain and Sasha Gillard-Loft, Adam Paynter and myself were there to handover a cheque for £1300 which is a contribution to the Foodbank from our community chest.

It's sad that Launceston needs a foodbank and that there are people in our community who are struggling so much financially that they need the foodbank to enable them and their families to put food on the table.

But it is to the huge credit of the team of volunteers led by Keith Roberts that the organisation has got up and running so quickly. They have been supported by the churches and by grants and donations from individuals as well as Cornwall Council and the Town Council. They have got premises at a cheap rent thanks to the generosity of Andy Hardy and Premier Carpets and they have been helped out by Terry Graves and others to make it ready to use.

Already the Foodbank has got more than a ton and a half of food via a collection at Tesco and the support of Premier Foods. But once they are in full swing this could last as little as a month.

The Foodbank will hold collections on a regular basis and almost every type of tinned or dried food is wanted (but it must be in date!). Unfortunately, they can't accept fresh or frozen goods.

Late Night Shopping tomorrow!

2011-12-08T15:56:00.003Z

Launceston's annual festive bonanza takes place tomorrow evening with and evening of entertainment in and around the town. The event is known simply as 'late night shopping' but it's far more than just having the shops open late.

There will be a parade featuring camels, the town band and a samba band. There will be street stalls and a charity auction and there will be food and drink available. And you can do your Christmas shopping at the same time.

If you haven't been before, it's a huge party.

And the lovely people at the Town Council have announced that they won't be charging for car parking in the multi-storey car park after 4pm (the Cornwall Council car parks are always free after 4). So there's no excuse for not coming to join in the fun.

Last year I almost got gored by a reindeer. I'll try not to get trodden on by the camels this time.

Council spends £139,000 a day on consultants

2011-12-08T14:08:00.002Z

Cornwall Council spent £139,000 per day on consultants in August this year according to new figures just released by the authority. This is despite the frequent promises to cut spending on this area.

The bill for consultants was £4.2 million for the month and another £1.4 million was spent on agency staff.

There is always likely to be some spending on consultants. It's unreasonable to expect the council to have every type of expertise within its workforce. So occasionally we need to buy in people who are, for instance, experts in railway law. But these should be contracts for hours or days, not for weeks or months at a time. And at a time when the Council is busy cutting bus services and threatening to close public toilets, the consultants cost seems particularly obscene. A single day's spending on consultants could save Camelford Leisure Centre twice over.

The same goes for agency staff. There are some areas of council work where a bit of flexibility is needed, but the current numbers are way more than they need to be and new people need training (at the Council's expense) before they can move into the front line. A high agency staff bill is usually a sign of lots of staff absence and sickness as well.

Far too many people employed as consultants or on agency contracts to do jobs you could get someone in Cornwall to do on a full-time basis for far less money.

Back in January, when Cornwall Council was spending a mere £70,000 a day on consultants and £30,000 on agency staff, Conservative Leader Alec Robertson promised new initiatives to cut the cost. And the Council's statement in response to these figures is to promise more of the same.

Liberal Democrats would name a single lead officer and a single cabinet member to take responsibility for spending on consultants and agency staff. We want to reduce the spending month on month and year on year.

UPDATE - The BBC online coverage of the story is here.

The bureaucrats shall inherit the NHS

2011-12-07T10:01:00.004Z

It's disappointing, but sadly no surprise, that GPs are stepping down from the new clinical commissioning groups set up as part of the health reforms. As a result the bureaucrats will be taking over and one of the key points of the reforms will be lost.

One of the major planks of the reforms are for the abolition of primary care trusts - the local(ish) level of bureaucracy which commissions services from GPs and local and general hospitals as well as other health providers.

In their place will come local commissioning groups which were meant to be led by GPs. With actual doctors on the ground being in charge, the hope was that there would be additional expertise and commissioning based on local knowledge and needs, not the target driven culture of the last government.

This week we have seen the amalgamation of two of the three Cornish commissioning groups as the smaller mid Cornwall organisation joined forces with the very large mid and west Cornwall group. The other organisation is the East Cornwall group which covers mainly the area of Cornwall that looks east to Derriford, Exeter and North Devon hospitals. The effect of this is that, rather than having lots of small local commissioning groups as was hoped, we have large organisations which could be remote from local needs and unaccountable to local people.

The big challenge though has been how to involve working GPs in the decision making. Nationally, it appears that many have chosen to withdraw as this survey by Pulse Magazine has found. The reason for their withdrawal appear to be the time commitment. As one former enthusiast for change told Pulse:

"When commissioning was announced it sounded like GPs would be able to do what they thought was right. But it has shifted to us being accountable here and accountable there and a whole lot of management speak. You never seem to be making any progress."

But the new commissioning groups will still exist, so who is going to run them? Step forward the bureaucrats who have, until now, been running the Primary Care Trusts and other bits of the NHS that have been abolished.

Whilst the ambition of this part of the NHS reforms - to make commissioning more expert and accountable - was laudable, it appears to be falling apart already in some areas.

Clinics being lost at Launceston and Liskeard hospitals

2011-12-07T09:01:00.003Z

This morning's Cornish Guardian carries a story about the loss of clinics from our local hospitals at Launceston and Liskeard. Over the past couple of years a couple of clinics have been lost from Launceston and six have gone from Liskeard.

The clinics lost provide a very wide range of services including ear, nose and throat; rheumatology, dermatology and orthopaedics. If these services aren't available locally then patients have to travel to Derriford or Treliske to get them.

I have to give credit to Callington Town Council for digging up this information because the changes seem to happen with almost no publicity.

We want an NHS which provides high quality services which are accessible to people in their local hospitals wherever possible. As an example, I know of one patient in Bodmin who needs cataract surgery. She was told that she would have to travel all the way to Hayle to be given a pre-operative assessment and to Treliske for her operation, despite the fact that she doesn't drive. She was told that 'all pre-op assessments for cataracts are done in Hayle'. That simply isn't true and she has now been given an assessment and operation date in Bodmin - hugely more convenient for her. But her case shows that, all too often our NHS is concerned about target times rather than what is right for the patient.

We're calling on the local Primary Care Trust to guarantee the current clinics at Launceston Hospital and to tell us what other services they are putting in to our local facility.

Is Newt promising Valhalla?

2011-12-06T22:28:00.002Z

The US Presidential contest is hotting up and the Republican candidates are busy producing ads.

There's this from Newt Gingrich:

Forgive me, but every time I see the hand waving through a corn field, I automatically think of the film Gladiator when that image was used as a metaphor for death. Is this what Newt wanted to imply?

At the other end of the scale is this effort from Ron Paul, the ultra-libertarian. It's based on an ad for a truck and so, presumably, is designed to appeal to 'all American' men:

Superfast Broadband now available in Launceston - UPDATED

2011-12-06T16:52:00.006Z

I posted last month about my frustration with the lack of information coming out of the Superfast Broadband programme. It's a great scheme which will put Cornwall ahead of most of the UK - but it's next to impossible to find out when a particular area will be connected.

The good news is that Launceston is among the first areas to see the roll out and that parts are already connected. It appears that the connected area is the top end of Western Road (the end nearest the A30) and at least part of St Johns Road. Tregadillet is also connected.

I wish I could give more detail about the extent of the area connected and when other areas might be switched on, but the Council won't say. If you want to check whether your home is connected, click here.

UPDATE - I've now been told that the extent of the connected area includes:

Tregadillet, Trebursey, Trevallette, Launceston – St Johns Road, Woburn Road, Castle Meadows, Western Road (end towards Pennygillam) and parts of Pennygillam (mainly Quarry Crescent and Pennygillam Way)

Anyone but Lance - the Tory search for a Police Commissioner candidate

2011-12-02T11:40:00.003Z

The Conservatives seem desperate to avoid having Cornwall Councillor Lance Kennedy as their candidate in the elections to choose a Police Commissioner next autumn. Two MPs from the region have been tasked with finding candidates to oppose him in the selection contest.

George Eustice and Oliver Colville have been asked by Conservative Central Office to find alternatives to Cllr Kennedy. According to the Western Morning News:

Mr Eustice, David Cameron's former Press secretary, said the party is keen for non-political figures beyond former MPs and councillors to take part in the primaries.
A senior officer from the Armed Forces was the kind of "independently-minded" candidate the party wants to come forward, Mr Eustice said.

In previous statements about the role, Colonel Tim Collins, the retired army officer likely to be the Tory candidate in Kent, told his party conference that the
role was not suitable for:

"sunset councillors or retired policemen with axes to grind"

At one stage the party even suggested that they would not be standing candidates at all.

Buses in North Cornwall first for the chop

2011-11-30T12:43:00.005Z

It looks like bus services in the most rural areas including the whole of North Cornwall are likely to be first for the chop in Cornwall Council's slashing of the network.

This morning the Environment and Economy scrutiny committee met to look at the model the council is proposing to use to 'score' the different bus services as part of the re-tendering exercise. Those services which score lowest are set to be the first axed.

I had a large number of problems with the different criteria which seemed to be far too much of a blunt instrument. The whole exercise seems to be designed to be quick and dirty - a fact acknowledged by the lead officer who suggested that taking as much as 46 hours to assess all routes in Cornwall on the communities they passed through would be too much. I argued that, when it comes to something as important as our bus network, we should take the time necessary and have a decent scoring system.

Officers admitted that buses which passed close to poorer communities but not through them would not get the marks in that category. Communities of under 500 people would get no marks and there were no fewer than three categories (out of twelve) which essentially all looked at the amount of subsidy per passenger. This is an important factor, but it shouldn't be worth a quarter of the whole mark.

It also appears that no marks are being given to what happens when a bus crosses the border into Devon. So a bus linking with Treliske Hospital gets marks. A bus linking with Derriford or Devon and Exeter does not despite the fact that these are the local hospitals for some Cornish residents.

The biggest shock came when the officers showed how 13 test routes scored when they ran the figures. Two Launceston routes were scored - the 236 service to Liskeard and the 225 service to Altarnun - as well as the Bodmin town service which is very similar to Launceston's 223 town service. The two Launceston services scored in the bottom three and the Bodmin town service scored tenth. It seems highly likely that the scoring system is heavily biased towards services between big towns in Mid and West Cornwall and biased against rural areas and, in particular, North Cornwall.

I'm therefore very worried that this whole exercise will lead to the axing of many routes in North Cornwall and that very poor residents will be left with no way of getting to work, to see family or friends or even to hospital.

I voted in favour of calling on the Cabinet to give more money to the supported bus services - a motion that was overwhelmingly passed - and against the proposed scoring system. Unfortunately the majority formed by Conservative and Independent councillors voted it through subject to the chief officer considering suggestions made by the committee.

UPDATE - The local paper coverage of the story is here.

Labour's prescription for Cornwall - Close small schools and praise the Tories

2011-11-30T09:06:00.005Z

A council budget meeting is one of the biggest political events of the year. Whilst at other times you can expect to see councillors from different political parties working together, during the budget debate you will tend to see two (or more) very different programmes emerging as different parties set out their vision for our area.

Yesterday we saw a clear difference between those who believe in freezing council tax and those who want to put it up. We also saw a different split between those who believe in the continuing mismanagement of frontline services and those who believe that we should be saving buses and public toilets and protecting town centre businesses from high parking charges.

But what of the Labour point of view. There is a single Labour councillor on Cornwall Council and, despite protestations of making a comeback, they have performed dismally in the two recent council by-elections. Yesterday's performance might explain why.

Jude Robinson nailed her tax and spend colours firmly to the mast with a vote both in favour of a 3% tax rise and against the Lib Dem freeze proposal. But it was in her speech on the main budget debate that she most surprised me.

Her opening line was to praise the current (Tory-led) administration for their work over the past year. Yep - the administration which has presided over a budget crisis, is endangering half the bus network and is threatening to close almost half the public toilets gets the thumbs up from Labour. The reason for the thumbs up? Because of the way they have handled the budget cuts necessitated by the financial crisis left behind by the last Labour government.

She did issue some criticisms. She said she disagreed with the administration on waste and on adult care but saved her biggest attack for the failure to close small village schools. It appears that the headline Labour policy for Cornwall is to attack rural communities and to force poorer families into towns and cities.

So it is clear. Labour's message for Cornwall is in favour of higher taxes, backing the Tory handling of the council and campaigning to destroy village life by closing smaller schools.

Other news from full council

2011-11-29T20:10:00.003Z

Even though it was the main event, the budget was not the only key item at today's six hour council meeting.

The proposal to back a public holiday on St Piran's Day - first put forward by my Lib Dem colleagues Ann Kerridge and Jeremy Rowe back in March - was finally approved. There were a large number of Conservatives (including the Leader) who backed an amendment for yet another round of consultation (presumably using expensive consultants). However the final result was pretty clear cut.

Cornwall Council will be continuing to campaign against the proposal for a Devonwall parliamentary constituency and will also be making a formal submission to the boundary commission asking them to use the new ward boundaries rather than the ones which have now been consigned to the dustbin. We don't believe that it helps constituents if people in a single ward are in two different constituencies. We also backed the proposal to retain the 'South East Cornwall' name for a constituency rather than the proposed 'Liskeard'.

At least some of the services offered by the Performing Arts Library will be kept in St Austell after a storm of protest greeted the initial proposal to move the entire thing to Threemilestone.

It appears that Cornwall Council will be expecting most of the work involved in helping people who do not live on the Olympic Torch route to see the procession to be done by the host towns and villages. I asked whether the Council had been in touch with the bus and train operators to ask them about helping out, but the answer appeared (it was pretty waffly) to be no. There do appear to be plans for other events across Cornwall, but the focal point - the torch itself - is likely to remain out of reach for many families. I'll get the full text of the response in the next couple of days and try to work out the meaning.

A council tax freeze for Cornwall

2011-11-29T19:59:00.004Z

Cornwall Council today agreed a Lib Dem proposal for a council tax freeze next year which will save a Band D household £31.11.

We faced the choice of asking residents to pay more to maintain the current level of services or accepting the government's offer of a grant to freeze council tax next year. For us this was no choice. We cannot justify asking residents to pay a penny more than we have to.

From saying over the past month that they were not prepared to discuss council tax levels until next year, the Conservative leadership have performed a hurried u-turn and were today prepared to accept the Liberal Democrat proposal of a council tax freeze. What is clear, however, is that the administration is split down the middle on the key issue of council tax with three of the four independent members voting for a 3% rise.

Far from their rhetoric of going early and being bold, the Conservative administration has been reduced to following the Liberal Democrats in doing what is right for local residents. It is clear that the Cabinet is split down the middle on the key issue of council tax and they are failing to deliver what is best for the people of Cornwall.

The Liberal Democrat council tax freeze will save a Band D council tax payer £31.11 next year. That may not be a huge amount, but it will be a welcome contribution to the household kitty of many Cornish families.

Whilst the vote today was pretty clear cut, the final council tax decision cannot legally be taken until February when the full final budget is agreed.

However, the Conservative led administration also accepted three other Liberal Democrat amendments. The first will establish a pot of money to help fund community bus services. The second will begin the programme of much needed investment in our harbours. The final amendment is one which we proposed last year and which was defeated. I'm curious (but delighted) that they have changed their minds now and agreed to reinforce the power of scrutiny committees with our amendment that changes to the budget once agreed cannot go ahead without being agreed first by scrutiny.

Despite the administration accepting these islands of certainty, the Lib Dems had made it clear from the start that we could not vote for the budget. This was mainly because we still do not know all the necessary details. Last year we said the same and it proved to be true with mid year crises in parking, public toilets and buses. The Leader was good enough to hold his hands up to two of these. We still don't feel that all the details have been worked out and, until we are sure that there will be no nasty surprises in the coming year, we won't be backing the budget even though it contains some undoubtedly good elements.

In the end though, the administration got their budget through although they had quite a few abstentions and votes against from within their own ranks.

UPDATE - Jeremy Rowe's take on the budget is here.

... or maybe not

2011-11-28T15:03:00.003Z

Last week I posted this about a question which had been submitted to the full council meeting tomorrow. Mr Davidson of St Austell was wanting to ask:

"Can I ask a question relating to item 12 - Parliamentary Constituencies Review?"

Last week I suggested that the answer was yes. It now appears that the question has been withdrawn from the order paper and so it is clearly no.

Water Bills to be cut by £50

2011-11-28T10:46:00.004Z

The Western Morning News this morning reports that George Osborne is proposing a £50 cut in water bills across the South West Water area.

That's hugely good news for an area which has been hit by over-pricing since the Conservatives controversially privatised the water companies. The most argued about element was the need to clean and keep clean more than 30% of the UK's coastline despite the area having just 3% of the population.

Together with what was perceived to be over-charging by the company itself, this lead to water bills which are twice as expensive as London and over £1000 per year in many cases. The average cost in Cornwall is £517 which is roughly 20% more than the UK average.

Liberal Democrats have been campaigning on this issue for many years now and this cut is a good step in the right direction. After all, in 13 years Labour did nothing on the issue. But whilst SWW bills are still the highest in the country - and by such a margin, we'll keep up the pressure on the Government to take further action.

School closures on Wednesday

2011-11-28T10:05:00.002Z

On Wednesday there is a large scale public sector strike planned over the issue of pensions. As a result, at least 88 schools across Cornwall will be totally or partially closed.

In the Launceston area, these are:

Egloskerry School - open to Class 3 only
Launceston College
Launceston CP School
St Catherine's C of E school
St Stephens CP School, Launceston - only open to ARB
Stoke Climsland School
Tregadillet CP School

Sir James Smiths in Camelford and Budehaven School are also among those closed.

This list may change over time. For the latest information, go to the Cornwall Council site.

Clegg launches £1 bn programme to get young people earning or learning

2011-11-25T15:26:00.002Z

This email has just landed in my inbox:

Dear Alex,

Today I have launched the Youth Contract, a £1bn programme to get every unemployed young person earning or learning again before long-term damage is done.

We cannot afford to lose the skills and talent of our young people – right when we need them most. We need the next generation to help us build a new economy.

Across the UK, youth unemployment has risen to 21.9% and in Cornwall, there are currently 2985 young people claiming Job Seekers Allowance. We owe it to them to make sure that even in tough economic times, we will do everything we can to find them a job, training or education.

That is why today I have committed the Coalition to investing £1bn to tackle youth unemployment. You can read more about the contract here, but it includes:

A work experience place for every unemployed 18 to 24 year old who wants one
410,000 new work places over the next three years
20,000 more incentive payments to encourage employers to take on young apprentices
250,000 new work experience placements
And because we know businesses are struggling to take young people on, we will pay half their basic wage for six months

Young people have been hit particularly hard in the recession, but even in the boom years, Labour failed to tackle the issue. During Labour’s 13 years, youth unemployment rose by 40%. With Liberal Democrats in Government, we won’t allow the children brought up in the boom to bear the brunt of the bust. The next generation must not pay the price for my generation’s mistakes. So the Coalition Government won’t sit on our hands and let a generation fall behind.

Nick Clegg MP
Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister

Cabinet Member proposes charging taxpayers £7.2 million more next year with 3% amendment

2011-11-25T15:09:00.004Z

Despite the insistence from Cornwall Council Leader Alec Robertson that the decision over council tax levels should wait until February, it seems that two distinct options will be debated by councillors next Tuesday.

As I've blogged before, the Lib Dems are proposing that Cornwall accepts the Government's offer of a grant equivalent to a 2.5% rise in council tax in return for freezing the amount we charge residents.

Today it has been announced that Indie cabinet member Julian German is proposing an amendment to raise council tax by 3%.

Such a move would raise an extra £1.2 million to provide more funds for the devolution team transferring assets from Cornwall Council to town and parish councils and money to improve assets that are being devolved; money to protect service delivery levels for footpaths and grass cutting; money for conservation management within the Historic Environment budget and money to deliver the FEAST project within the culture budget.

None of these is a bad scheme. But, in my view, paying for them through extra council tax is a bad idea. These projects could still be afforded through using some of the £7 million extra that Cornwall Council put into their war chest over the past year or by reducing the massively high contingency levels that Cornwall keeps to pay for pet projects and their financial failings.

It's not just the extra £1.2 million for these projects that Julian is demanding from taxpayers. By proposing a rise, he is forcing the Council to spurn the £6 million government grant and condemning householders to pay that money too when they don't have to.

It's also worth noting the language that Julian is using in his amendment. He talks of 'protecting service delivery levels for grass cutting and footpath maintenance'. So it seems that Cllr Robertson wasn't actually telling the truth when he said that his proposed budget contains no new cuts. If he was right then Julian wouldn't need more money to protect current service levels.

Wendron: Lib Dems jump from fifth to second and congrats to MK

2011-11-25T08:57:00.002Z

In case you haven't seen it elsewhere, this is the result of the Wendron by-election:

Loveday Jenkin (MK) - 427 - 36.4% (+16.4%)
John Martin (LD) - 262 - 22.3% (+12.3%)
Conservative 227 - 19.4% (+3.4%)
Independent 177 - 15.1% (-16.9%)
Labour 80 - 6.8% (+3.8%)

A great result for the Lib Dems jumping from fifth in 2009 to second this time. This was down to a brilliant candidate in John Martin and a fantastic campaign.

Obviously congratulations are due to Loveday Jenkin who came second last time and gained it this time.

The Lib Dems leapfrogged the Tories (third in 2009). This was the fourth by-election in this council. So far they have lost two seats and been failed to make any impression in two others that they thought they would win.

And where were Labour? Remember all their boasts about being a serious force in Cornwall. Perhaps you could excuse Bude - not exactly their best area. But half of Wendron falls within Camborne, Redruth and Hayle - their supposed heartland.

Thanks to everyone who helped in Wendron. We can be proud of this result.

Council to delay 22 road safety schemes to plug parking budget hole - details

2011-11-24T16:54:00.003Z

Cornwall Council has backed down on its proposal to use the money given by the government to repair roads damaged by harsh weather to plug the hole in its parking budget. That's great news, but there will still be 22 road safety schemes which are being delayed.

Last year, the Liberal Democrats warned that Cornwall Council's parking budget didn't add up. Unfortunately the Conservative-led administration refused to listen to us. As we predicted, there is a shortfall of at least £2 million this year. In order to meet part of this, the proposal had been made to use £1m of the £4.12 million that the government gave to repair ice and snow affected roads to plug the hole.

The Lib Dems warned that delaying road repair schemes that are designed to ensure safe driving is a very dangerous thing to do. To an extent, the council have listened to us this time. They have decided to delay other schemes and not those using the Government grant. Whilst this is welcome, it's still a risky thing to delay any road safety scheme.

The schemes affected are:

The work planned in each area is a variety of re-surfacing, patching, jet cleaning and the installation of anti-skid surfacing.

Is Cornwall Council showing contempt for hard-working families?

2011-11-24T13:58:00.004Z

Local Government Minister Bob Neill has accused those local authorities which are refusing to freeze council tax of showing "contempt for hard-working families". At the moment, the Tory-led administration on Cornwall Council is refusing to say whether or not they will implement a freeze.

Back at the Conservative Party Conference, Chancellor George Osborne announced that the Government would be giving a grant equivalent to a 2.5% rise in council tax to any local authority which froze their element of the council tax. It is regrettable that this is a one year only offer and the money won't be embedded in council budgets - something that all parties on Cornwall Council are lobbying for. That said, the choice for the coming year is between the normal rise in council tax being paid by residents or being paid by the government.

Liberal Democrats are clear that, with that choice, it should be the Government and not residents who pay. There won't be any effect on services or jobs as a result of the decision. It seems that local Conservatives are flirting with a decision which their own minister is comdemning.

Questions to which the answer is yes

2011-11-24T13:23:00.001Z

At each full council meeting, Cornwall Council invites members of the public to ask questions. Next Tuesday, a Mr Davidson of St Austell is first up with this poser:

"Can I ask a question relating to item 12 - Parliamentary Constituencies Review?"

Cornwall Council believes data loss is 'inevitable'

2011-11-23T13:33:00.003Z

Big Brother Watch have conducted a survey of local councils and have found that Cornwall Council is among the ten worst when it comes to losing personal data. Cornwall's response to this - that data loss is inevitable in today's information driven society.

I find this response very disappointing. I accept that mistakes sometimes happen and I don't think we should unnecessarily condemn. But we need to give the message to residents and businesses that we will treat their personal information with respect and take appropriate precautions with it. And where the loss is because of a fault by someone who should know better or who failed to take the right steps to keep data private then the council should consider disciplinary action.

The one thing that Cornwall Council got right in their statement is that society is becoming more and more technology, and information, driven. So let's rise to that challenge and make sure that residents who give us their personal details do so secure in the knowledge that they will only be seen by people who are properly authorised to do so.

St Piran's Day holiday could be worth £35m to Cornwall - and it's the right thing to campaign for

2011-11-23T10:28:00.003Z

The local papers are reporting the study carried out by Cornwall Council which shows that a St Piran's Day bank holiday could be worth up to £35 million to the local economy.

But, as a tweet colleague of mine points out - we shouldn't be doing it for the money. We should be campaigning for St Piran's Day to be a public holiday in Cornwall because it is the right thing to do.

This issue came up because the government is considering moving the May Day bank holiday. They have held a consultation with the options being put forward including 'Trafalgar Day' in October and St George's Day in April (which just happens also to be my birthday). They said they were open to other options however.

The Liberal Democrats put a motion to Cornwall Council back in March arguing that if there was a change then it should be to March 5th (St Piran's Day) in Cornwall. The matter has been considered for some time and the business case for a change was commissioned because of concern that it would lead to a financial loss for local businesses.

The report shows very clearly that a St Piran's Day bank holiday is good for our culture, good for tourism and good for Cornwall. If the bank holiday across the rest of the UK is moved to Trafalgar Day but Cornwall adopts St Piran's Day then it would be worth an extra £35 million to our economy. Other combinations show less of a boost and only one (the UK on St George's Day, Cornwall on St Piran's Day) shows any harm.

We don't know what the government's next move will be, but this at least proves the doubters wrong.

(That a St Piran's Day bank holiday could be worth more than ten times the boost to the Cornish economy of a 'Stadium for Cornwall' is an interesting aside)

Smart (and funny) political campaigning

2011-11-22T13:36:00.005Z

The World Development Movement have launched a new campaign aimed at stopping financial speculation on food markets. So far, it sounds pretty worthy but dull.

What sets this campaign apart is that it is based around an internet only spoof of George Osborne, played by Rufus Jones.

The first episode is online here. In total there will be 14 episodes between now and Christmas. They've got a political campaign message to sell and they've not made the mistake of trying to force it all down our throats in episode one. So I've not yet been inspired to sign up to the campaign. But I'm definitely going to tune in for episode 2.

Stadium for Cornwall gets outline permission

2011-11-17T14:24:00.004Z

Cornwall Council's Strategic Planning Committee today voted by 14 votes to 4 to approve an application for outline permission for a 10,000 seater stadium and hotel.

To be honest, from what I heard, they could hardly have refused. So many of the details - including the crucial question of how people will get there and where they will park if they drive - have been 'reserved' to the detailed application that there was little to discuss this time. Those who voted against the application appear to have done so because they wanted more details on these matters, not because they are fundamentally opposed.

The biggest debate was about whether a stadium in that location would stop the nearby airstrip from operating. The experts ruled that it wouldn't.

Today's positive outcome takes the stadium a small step along the road to happening but the number of reserved matters means that it is only a very small step. The crucial question of who might pay is the elephant in the room. Without funding (and both the council and Pirates have said they can't pay) this will never get past the drawing board.

Cornwall Lib Dems push for council tax freeze

2011-11-17T10:46:00.005Z

Liberal Democrats on Cornwall Council are calling on the authority accept the offer from central government to pay the rise in council tax next year so Cornish taxpayers don't have to. The group is calling on the Conservative led administration to back their amendment which would freeze council tax for Cornish taxpayers and guarantee to protect front-line services from further cuts.

The coalition government has offered a grant equivalent to the normal 2.5% council tax rise to any council which does not raise tax levels.

Cornwall can freeze council tax for residents without cutting any services thanks to this grant. It seems like a no brainer - yet the Conservatives are refusing to say what they will do.

Yesterday the cabinet debated the budget and again fudged the decision of whether to freeze or raise council tax. At a time when many families are struggling to make ends meet, we should be doing everything we can to help them out.

If the Liberal Democrat amendment is passed when the full council debates the budget on November 29th, a Band D household will save £31.11 next year. It's not a huge amount, but it's enough to pay for a child's school shoes or the petrol to get to and from work for a week.

As well as freezing council tax, the Liberal Democrats will be pushing other budget amendments to save frontline services which the Conservatives want to cut and to restore some of those which they cut this year. Liberal Democrats believe in high quality local services at a price you can afford - not whizz-bang schemes which never work out.

My colleague Cllr Jeremy Rowe added these thoughts:

"The Tories have made much of their so-called boldness in 'going early' on the budget, yet they don't seem bold enough to give anyone the most basic part of that process - the level of Council Tax residents will be expected to pay. Whether that's due to their timidity or the fractures within their County Hall coalition, how can they proceed with their budget without this most fundamental piece of information?"

"Of course it would be better if the Government grant was to be made permanent - and I am happy to help the council leadership out by writing to the Government. But even if this is a one year offer, it will avoid the authority having to make cuts and keep pounds in the pockets of Cornish families."

The pictures here show the amounts that would be saved by(from top) Band B, Band D, Band H and Band H taxpayers. Please note that, to protect personal financial details, we've used models for these photos.

Cabinet still spinning furiously over stadium

2011-11-17T07:54:00.004Z

This morning Cornwall's Strategic Planning Committee will consider the outline application to build a 10,000 seater stadium at Langarth Farm near Threemilestone.

There are two distinct aspects to the stadium process. The first (this one) is all about planning. Is this the right place for such a building and associated activities including the traffic, parking and influx of people on matchdays? There are very strict rules as to what can be considered relevant and, should councillors vote yes today having heard all the evidence, it doesn't automatically mean that it will go ahead, it just means that, in principle, they are happy with the concept of a stadium in that location.

That's because of the second aspect - the funding and running of the facility. I've made it clear that I have no objection in principle to a stadium (and have no view on whether the current site is the right one). What I am concerned about is the proposal to use public money to pay for it.

The Cabinet voted earlier this year to spend up to £120,000 on putting together a business case for the stadium. What I don't think people realised at the time is that the Council would take on the role of being the drivers to make the stadium happen and the biggest cheerleaders for it. I also don't think we realised just how much more than the £120,000 would be spent. Many hundreds of officer hours - paid for by council taxpayers - are being put into the stadium project but, because no officer is working full time on the project, apparently nobody is keeping tabs on how much this costs and it is not included within the £120,000.

The business case report was meant to be going to a scrutiny committee last month but got pulled at the last minute. It is, apparently, now due to be published in the New Year. In the meantime, the Cabinet Member responsible is still spinning for all he is worth.

No doubt entirely coincidentally, at the end of last week Cllr Ridgers sent an email to all Cornwall Councillors which included the claim that the stadium would bring £3m per year in economic benefits to Cornwall. I asked him to provide evidence for that claim but he refused.

Cornwall Tories - not exactly up to speed

2011-11-16T18:53:00.006Z

Cornwall's two top councillors combined today to prove they are, between them, under-briefed and losing their memory.

First up was council Leader Alec Robertson who, opening the debate on the budget, referred to a decision made by the courts to allow two other south west councils to close libraries.

Whoops!

Today the High Court gave a judgement which prevents Somerset and Gloucestershire councils closing branches because the two Tory run authorities have failed to properly consider the impact on vulnerable people.

Next up was Deputy Leader Jim Currie who claimed that he didn't know where Lib Dems got the idea that Cornwall was considering closing libraries.

Whoops!

Obviously Jim's memory isn't what it used to be. Just last year, he and his fellow cabinet members met in secret to consider a range of possible cuts. One of the options in the resulting budget document headed 'Cabinet recommendations on potential service cuts' (see pic left) was:

"Combine the OSS (One Stop Shops) and Libraries and reduce the service to nine key locations for OSS/Libraries across Cornwall"

Of course, this cut didn't happen. The cuts list was leaked to the BBC and huge local campaigns were started which seem to have made the Tories change their mind. But it doesn't detract from the fact that they were happy to close all but nine branches in principle.

More toilet confusion - UPDATE

2011-11-16T13:42:00.004Z

UPDATE - Council Leader Alec Robertson has just announced that the toilets issue will be put on hold for a year to allow for further discussions and consultation with town and parish councils. The post below was written before that announcement. I think this U-turn is very welcome and sensible considering the huge amount of disquiet from local councillors and towns and parishes.

Last night I wrote about the decision by Launceston Town Council to save the public toilets in our town by taking them over from Cornwall Council which had issued a 'take them or lose them' ultimatum.

This was a difficult decision for the town, but they decided that the possible additional cost to taxpayers was preferable to losing the facilities.

Yet today we find out that the Cornwall council ultimatum might not be worth the paper it is printed on. Apparently, at a meeting with some towns and parishes held in Truro on Monday, Cornwall Council Leader Alec Robertson said that the Conservative led Cabinet are now reconsidering the whole issue (again).

I think the appropriate phrase here is 'make up your damn minds'. Town and parish councils are now setting their budgets for next year. If they are being forced to take over costly services they need to know now. If they are not then they don't want to be demanding money from taxpayers that they don't need.

It seems that, once again, Cornwall Council's leadership couldn't organise their way out of a paper bag.

Launceston Town Council votes to save public toilets from the Cornwall Council axe

2011-11-15T21:22:00.003Z

Launceston Town Council decided this evening to take over the running of two public toilets in the town to save them from closure by Cornwall Council. The decision, by 11 votes to 3 with one abstention, will secure the future of the facilities in the Walk House car park in Tower Street and of the toilets in Race Hill car park.

Some months ago, Cornwall Council made its first effort to persuade town and parish councils to take over the running of public toilets. Then a month ago they published a list of 114 toilets across Cornwall which they were withdrawing funding for. In essence, they were telling town and parish councils to take them over or they would be closed.

In Launceston, the offer is being made to give a grant of around £11,000 to the town council to take over the Race Hill toilets but nothing for Walk House. Although the £11,000 is less than it costs Cornwall Council to run Race Hill toilets, the Town Council felt that they could run both sets for only slightly more and so they would take on both. The only worry is that the £11,000 grant is only guaranteed for the next two years. After that time it might be reduced or even cut altogether leaving town council precept payers to pick up the entire cost.

The situation was best summed up by Mayor Rob Tremain who said "Cornwall Council is holding a gun to the head of the town council but we have a responsibility to the people of Launceston and our visitors and if we don't look after them who will."

It's worth noting that Cornwall Council is busy dumping services on town and parish councils whilst at the same time putting more than £7 million in the bank this year that could be spent on securing such services.

Government backs Cornwall over no second home voting

2011-11-15T15:49:00.004Z

The Government today gave its backing to the changes introduced by Cornwall Council to restrict the right of second home owners to vote.

This year, those people who have a second home in Cornwall which is used purely for recreational purposes will no longer be able to register to vote. People who live permanently in two homes - such as students - will continue to be able to register from both but may only vote once in any single election.

In the House of Commons this morning, North Cornwall MP Dan Rogerson was told by Cabinet Office Minister Mark Harper that:

"I know that (Cornwall's) electoral registration office has been making sure that the law is applied fairly but firmly in registering people who reside in Cornwall, thus ensuring that it is indeed more accurate as well as more complete."

I'm very glad that we have got official endorsement for this move which Dan and I (among others) have been fighting for for many years.

Nick Clegg to discuss more devolution for Cornwall

2011-11-15T14:56:00.003Z

Lib Dem Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has agreed to meet with a Cornish delegation to discuss devolving more powers to Cornwall.

In Parliament this morning, St Ives MP Andrew George asked Nick to meet with him and others to discuss giving greater decision making power to Cornwall. As part of the Localism Bill which is just completing its passage through Parliament, local councils and local communities are getting more powers, but Andrew wants this to go even further in Cornwall.

(Photo is nick during a previous visit to Cornwall with Stephen Gilbert and Matthew Taylor in St Austell town centre during regeneration works)

The Movember thing

2011-11-14T22:10:00.003Z

It may be that everyone and his dog is taking part on Movember this year, but that's no bad thing.

Movember helps to raise money for men's cancer charities. All I'm doing is donating my top lip. (Actually, that's not all I'm doing - you have to keep the rest of your face clean shaven for the month).

Already I've suffered looking like a fool during the Remembrance Day parade through the town as well as the jokes from those more able to grow a proper moustache.

I've raised a bit through donations so far, but not nearly as much as this great cause deserves. So to ease me though my embarrassment, please consider making a donation. You can go to my personal fundraising page here, or just give me a donation when you see me. And please remember that if you are a UK taxpayer you can giftaid your donation to make it worth much more.

Coming Soon - consultation on lots of small changes to road regs in Launceston

2011-11-14T15:01:00.002Z

Cornwall Council will shortly be starting the consultation process for a whole heap of traffic and parking regulation changes in Launceston. As local councillors, Sasha, Adam and I have been waiting for a long time for some of these to happen.

In order to save money (the legal process costs £3600), it is right that these should be combined and that is why we have had to wait for so long for changes which should enjoy universal support.

In each case, residents in close proximity to the proposal and others who will be directly affected will get a letter asking for their views on the proposals. Anyone else will be invited to contribute thoughts via a notice in the local papers.

The schemes being proposed include:

- Residents Parking Scheme at Hillpark Cottages
- Residents Parking Scheme at Western Road
- Disabled Bay at Cross Lanes
- One Way System at Hurdon Way
- Moving the town centre motorcycle bay to Southgate Street
- Introducing limited waiting restriction in Moorland Road
- Introducing limited waiting restriction in Penworth Close
- Residents Parking Scheme in Race Hill
- Double yellow lines in St Cuthbert's Close
- Removing the parking area outside the old Newport Post Office
- Disabled parking bay in St Joseph's Road

Is Lance confused about his 'previous'?

2011-11-14T13:11:00.004Z

Saturday's Western Morning News had an interview with Lance Kennedy as he vies for the role of elected Police Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall. But is Lance a bit confused about his electoral history?

I only ask because the article contains the sentence:

"Two stints as mayor of the North Cornwall town followed before taking on the role of councillor at the then Cornwall County Council."

Of course Lance wasn't on the former County Council and nor was he on North Cornwall District Council. So how did the journalist come to write that he was?

Incidentally, I'd love to hear (tortoise sanctuary owner) Joy Bloor's reaction to Lance's claim that

"I am actually Joy Bloor's best friend"

Devonwall proposal update

2011-11-14T11:39:00.004Z

At this morning's meeting of Cornwall Council's Electoral Review Panel, we agreed to ask the full council to make a submission to the Boundary Review with an alternative to current proposals.

The first statement we want to make is about the Devonwall proposals. For all the reasons stated before, we want to reiterate our opposition to the idea of a constituency which crosses the border. Although the Boundary Commission was restricted in what they were allowed to propose, they are still able to make the statement that they are only proposing a Devonwall seat because they have to.

The second request to full council is to make a submission asking for the use of the new 2013 ward boundaries rather than the out of date 2009 boundaries. Although this only affects six wards, it still seems bonkers to use boundaries that are already out of date and which will split communities.

We will also be looking to see if there is a consensus on moving some wards to maintain natural communities. It is currently proposed that Mount Hawke & Portreath and St Agnes wards should be in the new Bodmin & Newquay constituency despite there being no natural affinity between the areas and the very strained communication links. It is also proposed that St Stephen parish should be split between two constituencies. As an alternative, it was proposed that the two north coast wards should be moved to the Truro & St Austell constituency and St Stephen unified in the Bodmin & Newquay seat.

The debate now moves to full council at the end of the month.

Free early years education for two-year olds in Cornwall

2011-11-14T09:18:00.002Z

The Government has announced plans to extend free early education to 140,000 disadvantaged two-year-olds, and parents will be able to access the free entitlement more flexibly. In Cornwall, around 900 two-year olds are expected to benefit from the proposals.

Liberal Democrat Children’s Minister, Sarah Teather, announced a consultation today on how this commitment will be implemented. The plans include proposals to help parents and children alike by making the free entitlement of 15 hours per week of early education more flexible, so it can be taken between 7am and 7pm across two days instead of the current three days.

Helping 900 two-year-old children from the poorest backgrounds in Cornwall will benefit them for years to come. High quality early education is the key to making a difference early on in a
child’s life and help make Britain a fairer and more equal society.

Improving social mobility is a Liberal Democrat priority in Government and early years education is crucial to achieve this. Targeting early education at those who stand to benefit most, is an important to achieve this goal. It will be an integral part to disadvantaged children’s healthy development. This means they’re not falling behind before they have even started primary school.

The task for the Conservatives who run Cornwall council is to make this ambition a reality and deliver this extra help for hard press families.

Commenting further, Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg said:

“I want us to give every child the best possible start – so free education for toddlers from the most disadvantaged homes will now be a right and not a privilege.

“Crucially the extra care will be flexible and easy to access. Parents across the country are bending over backwards to balance work and home. The Coalition wants to help in whatever way we can.”

All local authorities in England have been delivering a targeted offer of between 10 and 15 hours of free early education to some of the most disadvantaged two-year-olds since September 2009. The extension of 15 hours to all disadvantaged two-year-olds will mean an increase in the number of places across the country, from 20,000 per year to around 140,000 per year.

LEP roadshow coming to Launceston

2011-11-14T08:43:00.002Z

The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) is launching a series of road shows across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to give businesses a real say in the development of the new economic strategy. The Launceston event will be on December 8th at 2.30pm.

Called ‘Tell Us’, the series of 15 road shows challenges businesses of all sizes to take the driving seat and set the priorities for the recently formed Local Enterprise Partnership.

Chris Pomfret, Chair of the LEP says: “For the first time, we have a chance to create a local economic strategy which is really driven by businesses and reflects what our local businesses want. These road shows are an opportunity for businesses to have their voice heard.”

Gaynor Coley, Managing Director at Eden Project says: “The wealth of our county depends on many businesses and partnerships between the private, public and voluntary sector. We want to hear about the issues that matter to them, so we can work together and combine our energies to make sure everyone in Cornwall can look forward to a bright future. Cornwall has amazing potential. We want to seize it with both hands and turn it into reality.”

The road show will include a number of speakers with presentations by Chris Pomfret, (Chairman) and Gaynor Coley (Board Member) from the LEP and Mark Richardson, Chief Executive of the Cornwall Voluntary Sector Forum.

I’m very glad that the LEP is getting out and about across Cornwall. The only problem that I can see with the events is that, being during the day, they are likely to exclude many who work as sole traders or in shops and businesses with only limited numbers of staff who simply won’t be able to take the time off to attend.

A quick rant about the Superfast Broadband programme

2011-11-11T13:50:00.003Z

Cornwall is right to be proud of the fact that it is getting superfast broadband across 80% of the Duchy and that it is getting this before many other parts of the UK. We should also be very happy that the scheme appears to be rolling out more quickly than was at first anticipated.

But that doesn't mean that it isn't extremely annoying and disappointing that getting implementation dates and details is like getting blood out of a stone.

This afternoon I had a meeting with officers who are working on this joint Cornwall Council/BT/EU project. They asked to meet with me because:

We would really like to set up a meeting with you for sometime in the next few weeks where we can brief you on the programme, the roll-out in your area and the message we want to get across to the public.

Except that they couldn't answer any of my detailed questions about when different parts of Launceston will get the upgrade and which areas would get the even faster Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) system.

We know that roll out will start in our town in December. But nobody will get any notice of where is being upgraded until that upgrade has happened. At this point, householders can check online and be told that they can move to a new superfast broadband contract.

I know that the availability of the service to some will create a bit of a buzz and the obvious question from everyone else of "When will I get it?" Unfortunately, the only answer that will be available will be "At some point in the next three years."

I just don't think that is good enough - particularly for businesses that we are trying to persuade to move to or stay in our town or which are considering upgrading the services they offer.

I want to be an ambassador for this new service. I think it will be great for businesses and for homes. But the lack of information means that it is almost impossible to be an advocate.

Boundary Commission hearing

2011-11-11T09:14:00.004Z

Yesterday I had the chance to make my case against the plans for a Devonwall constituency at the Boundary Commission's hearing in Truro.

I reiterated the reasons given by the Keep Cornwall Whole campaign and added the fact that I think a Devonwall constituency will turn off voters. In the old days the Boundary Commission was run by the Electoral Commission, one of whose major tasks is to encourage people to vote. I'm concerned that a cross-border seat, combined with constantly changing boundaries, is not only going to make it much tougher for MPs to represent people, but it is going to reduce turnout considerably. North Cornwall (or SE Cornwall, or Truro and Falmouth) means something to people here in a way that Upper Tamar (the awful alternative name proposed by the Conservatives) does not.

Also speaking at the event were a number of concerned individuals from across the political divide. I'd like to compliment Richard Williams, the Council's top law and elections officer, who spoke for the Council and also Adam Killeya, the former Mayor of Saltash and Convenor of the Keep Cornwall Whole campaign, who made an excellent speech setting out the reasons to oppose Devonwall.

Others, including North Cornwall MP Dan Rogerson, are due to speak today and it should still be possible to turn up and speak without registering. The session at the Alverton Manor closes at 5pm.

The WMN coverage of the hearing is here.

Launceston Fire Station needs you!

2011-11-08T14:04:00.004Z

Launceston Fire Station is one of a number of locations around Cornwall where new firefighters are needed. Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service is after a number of new on-call firefighters to ensure that each call out is attended by a fully crewed vehicle in the shortest possible time.

The other stations where new recruits are needed are Camborne, Fowey, Liskeard, Looe, Lostwithiel, Polruan and Torpoint.

On-Call firefighters (they used to be called 'retained') are fully trained part time firefighters. There are more than 400 across Cornwall at the moment and most stations rely on them for all their cover as the number of full-time stations is very limited.

Equipped with a beeper, on-call firefighters respond to emergency calls and have to be within 4 minutes of their local fire station during their on-call hours. That makes people who work close to the fire station especially needed. The service is particularly looking for people who can provide 24/7 cover or cover during the 7am to 7pm shifts.

In order to apply you have to be over 17 and a half (when you enter employment after training you have to be at least 18) and physically fit. You also need to live and/or work close to the first station.

For the past two years I have been a member of the informal Council committee overseeing the fire service and have met many of our full-time and part-time firefighters. They are an incredible group and really enjoy their work. I'd encourage anyone even vaguely interested to apply.

If you are interested in finding out more, click here or call 01872 323500.

Tories confused about council tax proposals

2011-11-07T13:47:00.004Z

At the scrutiny sessions last week, the cabinet member in charge of the budget, Jim Currie, was adamant that there was not yet a decision about what the proposed council tax level would be next year.

And yet the Tory literature in the Bude by-election was promising that the Conservatives would deliver a freeze in Council tax.

Although that is the most likely outcome, they seemed awafully certain for a decision that has not yet been made.

Lib Dems welcome Conservative u-turn on toilet closures

2011-11-07T13:18:00.005Z

It seems that the Conservative-led Cornwall Council cabinet is having another think about the proposal to close up to 114 public toilets across Cornwall. As Liberal Democrats we have welcomed this u-turn.

The budget cut behind this was a part of the proposals voted through against Liberal Democrat opposition last November. It sought a £1.5 million cut in that particular service area. A few weeks ago a scrutiny committee worked out the implications of that cut and listed 114 public toilets that could be closed.

I think that two thoughts have forced the Tories to think again. The first is that the Council is, quite rightly, very proud of Cornwall's standing in the tourism sector. Last week we won the award, yet again, as the best venue in the UK. Just how long could Cornwall retain its reputation as a tourism venue if half the public toilets are closed?

The second factor is that very few town and parish councils have yet shown an inclination to take on these services unless there is a grant attached. It is all very well Cornwall Council seeking to freeze council tax bills, but most residents will actually see a rise if their town or parish is forced to take on the services that Cornwall Council is abandoning. Even if a small grant is given, the devolution process can only work at a certain rate and so the prospect of boarded up toilets across Cornwall is very real unless the council has a rethink.

Liberal Democrats have been vociferous in our opposition to these planned closures and have highlighted the likely damage to our tourism industry that would result. We hope that the Cabinet will issue a formal statement setting out their position as soon as possible.

The photo above shows my colleagues Adam Paynter and Sasha Gillard-Loft with local shopkeeper Mike Bluett campaigning against the proposal to close the Walk House toilets in Launceston.

Superb Get Out the Vote film from Tunisia

2011-11-07T08:35:00.002Z

Thanks to Mark Pack for this - a Tunisian Get Out the Vote film.

Put a huge poster of the former dictator in the middle of the city. Use secret filming to catch the reaction of passers by. Turn it into a film encouraging people to vote. And all this from the Tunisian equivalent of the Electoral Commission.

Olympic torch route through Cornwall announced

2011-11-07T00:12:00.005Z

The official news of the route of the Olympic torch relay has just been announced. We already knew the very good news that the torch would begin its UK journey on May 19th at Land's End and finish the day in Plymouth. Now we know that the route will take in Sennen, Newlyn, Penzance, Marazion, Rosudgeon, Ashton, Breage, Helston, Falmouth, Truro, Newquay, St Stephen, St Austell, Stenalees, Bugle, Lanivet, Bodmin, Liskeard and Saltash.

On the way the torch will stop for some pretty iconic photo opportunities at St Michael's Mount and the Eden Project.

Of course I'm disappointed that the torch will pass through just a couple of North Cornwall communities and there does seem to be a pretty circuitous route in Mid and West Cornwall that doesn't exist in the East. It would have been good to see it visit the historic capital of Cornwall and be taken to the top of Launceston Castle.

The aim of the organisers is that 95% of the UK population should live within an hour of some point the route. In Cornwall it looks like virtually that number will do so - if not a few more. The task for the organisers now (and the council given the extra money they have thrown at this day) is to make sure that they do everything possible to ensure that everyone who wants to see the torch procession in person can do so rather than just having to watch it on TV.

Apparently there will be a map of the route here, but this is not working at the time of writing.

Two days in November

2011-11-04T14:42:00.004Z

I blogged about the first day of the Council's budget scrutiny session yesterday. Although day two had a few more specifics, it was still utterly frustrating.

The things we learned:

- Officers given 15 minutes to present their budget plans for next year are more than happy to spend 13 of those minutes talking about their achievements of the past year and in two cases never got on to future plans at all;
- They never seem to give any figures;
- Except those written on Powerpoint slides which are far too small for anyone in the audience to read;
- The amount of management speak being used is getting beyond a joke. What exactly is 'transformational change' and what does 'operationally integrate' mean?

We have been promised a few more detailed answers over the next weeks, but various schemes that were trumpeted by the Leader when the budget was launched are still pretty thin on details. What about the 'Cornish EMA'? Who will it help, how much will they each get and what will happen after the second year? And we were told nothing at all about the 'bursary scheme'.

Last year we were told that lots of saving headlines were included in the budget but the details were leaked out bit by bit over the year. This year I have asked for the full details of implicit service cuts to be made available before we are asked to vote on the budget.

We asked about the knock on effects of the cuts to the bus concessionary fare reimbursement on the adult care and childrens services budgets. Unfortunately this work hasn't been done and so we still cannot be sure that the budget is not proposing a cut of £2 million from one service only to lump an additional £2.5 million onto other budgets.

I remain convinced that 'going early' has become a matter of dogma rather than practicality - especially as, according to the Chief Exec, no further cuts are proposed. The rationale for going early last year was that making cuts as soon as possible saved more money for less pain. That argument doesn't appear to be relevant this year, so why are we being asked to vote something through which clearly has not been properly worked out in many respects.

Andrew Wallis has also written on this and I echo his thoughts. Whatever the past two days have been, they have certainly not been an effective scrutiny of the detailed plans for the next year's Cornwall Council budget.