Forty Cornwall councillors could see through the developers’ manipulation and deception, and were able to use their sound judgement, deep analysis, intelligence and bravery against the blinded rugby battering ram, to vote against these vile hyper developer-driven agenda to build another Prince Charles-style new town, five miles to Truro’s West, at Chiverton. With no sewerage facility and only one side of the A30 dualled, and despite current limited access to Treliske due to already obscene levels of traffic, especially for a small market town in the middle of “rural” Cornwall, you can see how the other 61 scared, intimidated, misguided or complicit councillors got it wrong, in backing not a stadium for Cornwall, but another disaster in waiting. As one Truro councillor, Dulcie Tudor, herself said (despite backing the scheme), the plan is full of holes! But on this occasion, Bristol-based strategic director for Cornwall council, John Betty, somehow won the day. I expect he’ll be long gone with his generous council pension, once the chaos and disaster unfolds. From one tired campaigner for Truth and reason: On 19 Apr 2018, at 10:55, kevin bennetts wrote: Dear Armorel I am weary and deflated by the current state of my beloved Cornwall and the lack of wisdom being exercised in its stewardship by what appears to be aliens who neither understand nor worse still do not appear to care about anything but the fools gold promised by the false God of short termist illusory growth and instant gratification. They meanwhile fail to recognise the long term benefits of sustainable organic growth that would accrue from investment in ourselves from within had they prudently nurtured our natural capital instead of despising it and squandering it. No doubt a significant proportion of the other recipients of this missive who operate the levers of power at Kremlin Kernow will, in their usual manner, sneer and be buoyed up by the dubious virtues of their self professed superior intellects. (It is said that self praise is no recommendation!). I doubt that in truth they actually have the vision or perception, or indeed the humility, necessary to acknowledge the real harm that they are increasingly visiting on our collective heirs and successors. It breaks my heart to say that so many of our disengaged apathetic fellow Cornish are the truly guilty ones because their ongoing indolence and deathly silence encourages the perpetrators on to ever greater efforts allowing the ship of fools sails merrily on its way because as things stand they know that they can get away with it. How poignant that the silent ones awaken with such a start when the latest Kremlin Kernow outrage is scheduled to be perpetrated in their own backyard, this makes such a mockery of our cry of onen hag oll clearly underlining the stark fact that selfishness is our greatest collective weakness which focusses and distils my anger with my own kind while stiffening my own resolve to spread the word. The text below was written in another place at another time but speaks volumes to us at this time and place. It's by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. "To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men. The human race Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised Against injustice, ignorance, and lust, The inquisition yet would serve the law, And guillotines decide our least disputes. The few who dare, must speak and speak again To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God, No vested power in this great day and land Can gag or throttle. Press and voice may cry Loud disapproval of existing ills; May criticise oppression and condemn The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws That let the children and child-bearers toil To purchase ease for idle millionaires. Therefore I do protest against the boast Of independence in this mighty land. Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link. Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave. Until the manacled slim wrists of babes Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee, Until the mother bears no burden, save The precious one beneath her heart, until God’s soil is rescued from the clutch of greed And given back to labour, let no man Call this the land of freedom." We must redouble our efforts buoyed up by the increasing number of ethical councillors who are awakening and are now increasingly prepared to speak up on behalf of their electorates because they have listened to and accepted what is being said by others instead of blindly following what they are told by the ‘’other darker side’’ within Kremlin Kernow to progress and enforce its malign agenda. Sincere best wishes Kevin And a message from a former senior Penwith planning officer, injecting some rationale in the current madness: A core problem is the fact that this Tory government reduced several volumes of Planning Policy Guidance down to 70-odd pages, thus leaving loopholes that developers can, and do, drive a phalanx of Sherman tanks through. This is what was behind Andrew Kerr's words when he said that we now live in a "developer-led world" and that "we are not in charge of our own developments". A second problem is that the former Districts wrote some excellent Local Plans (I was partly involved in the writing of Penwith's), with good protective policies in them. This shambolic and undemocratically imposed Unitary authority ditched most of those, just picking the parts they wanted for several years, while discarding the rest. I seriously doubt that the current Local Plan even comes close to matching the protections offered by those earlier Policy documents. We no longer have a planning team that knows the first thing about Cornwall, for the most part. They're nearly all imported, and don't know Crows-an Wra from Crow's Nest. At Penwith, we had a team of mainly Cornish, or long-term Cornish resident, officers who knew the district inside out, so intimately knew what they were writing about. And, just as importantly, CARED! They were damn good professionals. In the meantime, I've been urging local councils in Penwith to re-adopt the Penwith Local Plan policies when forming their own Neighbourhood Plans. Beyond that, I don't see what else I can do to help rectify this appalling situation, and shocking decline in planning standards at Cornwall Council. That these should have become so dire, negligent and uncaring in just 10 years is deeply hurtful to those of us who, in our former local planning officer lives, did our level best to offer and perform professional and knowledgable service.