Now that this petition has passed the 5,000 mark, we ALL need to start putting more pressure on the Council. We have recently written to all Cornwall Councillors, but now we need a lot more back-up, if they are to understand our message loud and clear. We are asking all of you that have signed this petition to write a short email to you local Cornwall councillor, explaining why you feel planning in Cornwall is not fit for purpose and why Cornwall needs a different approach. A small number of you have already done so, with excellent letters, which we published on the site earlier this week. But many of you have written scathing comments on this petition about the way in which Cornwall is being ruined in a very short space of time, and it is time that councillors were made fully aware of the groundswell of opposition that exists to Phil Mason's enthusiasm for irresponsible and unsustainable hyper-development. You can help raise this awareness by transferring these comments into precise and well aimed emails to your councillor. Please find the time to write to your local Cornwall councillor, whose email address can be found by typing in your postcode in the Council's website here: www.cornwall.gov.uk/my-area/ or here:https://democracy.cornwall.gov.uk/mgCommitteeMailingList.aspx?ID=0 Please also cc your email to Council Leader Adam Paynteratadam.paynter@cornwallcouncillors.org.uk and ourselves at imonk@hotmail.co.uk so we can monitor those councillors that have been written to by their constituents. Many thanks to you all. Yesterday (Tuesday 20th February 2018), the full council met, and it seems that a petition carrying some 5,000+ supporters’ signatures may have carried a little weight. Councillor after councillor referred to “the people”, “the Cornish”, “the residents”, “the local population” and/or “the taxpayers”, when talking about the need to save services and keep down taxes. Sadly, it would seem that paid officers and civil servants still pull the strings, as the same councillors also praised and thanked officers for their hard work! Are they really scared of their own employees?? Surely they have the mandate from the electorate? Do these civil servants really need praise on top of their huge salaries, guaranteed large pension pots, generous expenses and bonuses, and for all this, still making plenty of mistakes (that would see them collect their P45s in the private sector) whilst seemingly acting in the best interests of developers, rather than those people the councillors were trying hard to appease, if not please? www.cpre.org.uk/media-centre/latest-news-releases/item/4768-brownfield-registers-identify-land-for-more-than-1-million-homes? So whilst local people, with local knowledge – and sometimes far better qualified than planning officers – and local best interest at heart fight unnecessary, greed-driven and unsightly developments, planning officers either recommend approval, or government inspectors – with Localism at the heart of their agendas! – run roughshod over any and all sensible opposition; latest example? Falmouth, where the inspectorate (usually a clever planning boff flying in from a large city hundreds of miles away) approved development at Ocean Bowl, the Rosslyn Hotel and Fish Strand Hill, setting a precedent for the former Coachworks development in Penwerris Lane, which even the councillors had turned down (presumably finally listening to local opinion about the complete lack of space and suitability to this scheme). Why did the case officer approve this, and why will the council not fight it? Again, because officer and council lawyers are too weak or complicit to win an appeal, and quite frankly, have no history or connection with the areas they allow to be permanently damaged, so don’t really care about the consequences either. Democracy and common sense at its best… And the head of this particular out-of-town snake is now two-headed: Phil Mason alongside his new boss, John Betty; here today, gone tomorrow, with their gold pieces, their medals, and the huge destruction and debt they leave behind… So when Betty and Mason's plans for an additional £600-800m borrowing for their grand schemes for doomed homes - few for locals - in random farms near an already choked A30, let's hope interest rates don't rise too quickly as the current level of council debt repayment (around £1m/week), will surely rise pretty quickly with local taxpayers footing the bill... again. Don't even mention Treliske or any other infrastructure, because we're not sure they've thought about that one! Perhaps our councillors should also take a closer look at this article for better advice than that they currently receive from some of our more wayward planning & strategy officers. www.planningresource.co.uk/article/1457651/lobbying-creating-developments-serve-no-one-investors-developers Lobbying 'creating developments that serve no one but investors and developers' A claim that professional property lobbyists are helping create developments that serve no one but investors and developers features in today's newspaper round-up. Writing in The Guardian, the author and corporate transparency campaigner Tamasin Cave says that planning consultations, carried out by lobbyists working on behalf of developers, are "a tool that serves to draw out community opposition and provide it with a managed channel through which to voice concerns, but with no hope of tangibly changing the outcome". Cave says that many councillors work for lobby firms and highlights one company that "employs numerous local councillors, including one who sits on a council planning committee, as well as prospective and former councillors, plus a former council leader". She adds: "These people not only understand how decisions are made, but in many cases are the decision-makers themselves. This is valuable for any developer needing council backing." Cave says that "until a light is shone on these relationships they will continue to flourish, and we will continue to get developments that serve no one but the investors and developers". The Guardian also continues its investigation into the activities of Robert Davis, the Conservative deputy leader of Westminster City Council and, until last year, the chairman of its planning committee. The paper runs an article that outlines Davis’ meetings with lobbyists and the developer behind the controversial Paddington Cube scheme in Westminster, which was approved in December 2016. Davis has denied any wrongdoing and said yesterday that his meetings were "properly declared and open to anyone to examine". Evening Standard columnist Jim Armitage says that, "at a time when residents feel developers always have the upper hand, [Davis] should apologise; of course local and national politicians should meet businesses regularly, but it shouldn’t be done so often over lavish hospitality". He adds: "Appearance is all in public life, and to voters like me, this looks rotten." The Financial Times (subscription) reports that "Britain’s 10 biggest housebuilders have increased the amount of land they hold with planning permission by about a fifth during the past decade, as political pressure grows on the sector to build more homes". The paper says that "the largest housebuilders held almost 399,000 plots with some form of planning permission in 2016, compared with just over 330,000 in 2006, according to analysis from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, a charity that wants to restrict building in the countryside". It adds: "In 1998, the top 10 builders held 230,000 plots with planning permission." The Telegraph reports that "controversial plans to erect a series of zip wire rides across one of the most beautiful landscapes in Britain have been abandoned after a chorus of protests from residents and environmental campaigners". The paper says that Treetop Trek Ltd had applied for planning permission for a £1.8 million activity hub with eight aerial lines up to 1,200 metres long "criss-crossing" Thirlmere Reservoir in the Lake District National Park. An article in The Guardian examines how poor urban design has helped entrench inequality in American towns and cities. The piece says that "from highways carved through thriving ‘ghettoes’ to walls segregating black and white areas, US city development has a long and divisive history". The Guardian also reports that "major British towns and cities, including Glasgow, Wrexham, Aberdeen and Chester, could be much more severely affected by climate change than previously thought". The paper says that the study, by Newcastle University, "analysed changes in flooding, droughts and heatwaves for every European city using all climate models". The piece says that in a the "high-impact scenario, some cities and towns in the UK and Ireland could see the amount of water per flood as much as double". It would seem that Cornwall is currently suffering from an overdose of this inappropriate lobbying....