Planning in Cornwall, for People or Profit? A debate organised by Cornwall for Change To feature guest speakers from the Community Voice on Planning (CoVoP) and CPRE (South Hams, which includes part of Dartmoor National Park) 2pm to 5pm, 10th March 2018 Crossroads Conference Centre, Cornwall TR16 5BP If you're interested in coming along, perhaps you'd register your interest at www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/planning-in-cornwall-for-people-or-profit-tickets-42983249055 Planning in Cornwall, for People or Profit? www.eventbrite.co.uk A discussion about Planning issues in Cornwall and across the UK, for anyone who wants to make a difference. We want to ensure that no region is alone in the battle against incompetent Planning and that we make our case strongly at both Local and National level. Guest speakers will include the Chair of CPRE, South Hams and the Chair of Community Voice on Planning (CoVoP) In a separate development today, one particular letter in the West Briton, from a Howard Embery (newly arrived in Truro), responding to Redruth's Barry Thomas, has added veracity to the fact that councillors and officers are generally lying about the intended housing policy for all these new pop-up mass lego estates, as one University teacher remarks: "The disingenuity of our councillors is revealed today in a letter from a recently arrived resident of a new Truro retirement ghetto. Pointing out how the Cornish are English (thanks for putting us right on that one), this Essex refugee states that his neighbours are all people from 'Yorkshire, Oxfordshire, Essex, Sussex, Surrey, London and many other areas'. And yet Cllrs Mitchell and Egerton persist in peddling the delusion that the 52/57,000 houses they're so keen to build are houses 'that the residents of Cornwall need'. Why don't they have the guts to fess up to the facts? I'll spell it out for them. Cornwall Council's housing strategy is to meet demand from the English, NOT local need. It's to encourage population growth (partly to help council finances) and, wittingly or unwittingly, it's effectively to collude with colonisation." Finally, from prominent members of the business community, with both advice and choice words for Cornwall Council, and especially planning: “The whole planning department is a disgrace to public service. That was confirmed by Andrew Kerr (x-Cornwall CEO) when he stated that the council was no longer in control of planning and that it was now in the hands of developers. Best thing I can really do is comment (which is then seen by large numbers) on posts that may be made by member businesses who are alarmed about the topic. I did email all of the membership about this a little while back.” “As I am sure you know, I run business events every week across the county, trying to help member businesses with the issues they face. The focus is upon individual business needs and is not political in any way, however with Brexit, Cornwall Hospitals Trust being put under special measures and the county's planning situation being so poor, inevitably these topics come to the fore. I can say that there are very many who make these points / questions when housing is discussed:- • Affordable is still not affordable in Cornwall • Where are all of the jobs coming from, for the people that are going to fill the 52,500 homes? • There is no local need for anything like this number of homes, with Cornwall's 52 week population in decline. • With mass under-employment in the county, why are we wanting to create in-migration? • How will our infrastructure cope - roads, utilities, schools, doctors, hospitals etc? I am not in a position to help members with these questions/comments as every time I have tried to gain answers to them, someone passes the buck and I never get a straight answer.” “Thank you for the information about the "Housing Growth and Delivery Summit 2017". I can confirm that I have not been contacted about this event and hence was not aware it was taking place. The sceptic in me says that is the way some want it to be. I have now run over 200 business events in Cornwall since September 2015. It is very clear to me from running these events that there are very many people in the county forced into self employment as there are not enough jobs paying a living wage available in the county. They go into business, not to fulfil an ambition, but to try and put food on the table. It is also very apparent that a large percentage of those people are hugely underemployed. As highly skilled as many of them are, some find it very difficult to gain meaningful contracts in Cornwall. Many of these run on a shoestring operations stand little chance of gaining contracts outside the county either. The events I run are called Collaboration Hubs and as the name suggests one of the core aims is to help businesses collaborate for mutual benefit, which can help them win business they would otherwise stand no chance of winning. We are trying to do our bit, without any support, to help improve life in business in Cornwall. With the ONS statistics showing that there are some 50,000 self employed people in the county earning an average of less than £10,000 per annum, we are obviously only scratching the surface. This is the huge problem that needs to be solved in Cornwall. Poverty brings with it a huge spiral of social problems. Sadly much of the attention for our "Future Economy" is in my view focused on ill researched vanity projects which will never have a meaningful positive effect on the man in the street. Until the challenge above is recognised and dealt with by those with their hands on the purse strings, home ownership will remain out of reach for huge numbers of people in Cornwall. Each year, young talent leaves Cornwall for the reasons outlined above. The result, we have an ageing population, with increased dependency on our healthcare systems. The 52 week population in the county has I believe fallen slightly over recent years. We apparently have 29,000 or so empty homes in the county. So I am puzzled as to why we need 52,500 more unaffordable homes! In my humble opinion, the efforts of some very well meaning people are not focused on the things that are going to make a real difference.”