We’ve covered the thorny issue of the so called “Stadium for Cornwall” before, but given that the whole sorry scheme involves mountains of debt for years to come, for Cornish tax payers, we wanted to bring further information forward that may well shed some more light, to help those unfortunate councillors and supporters who were hoodwinked into thinking this was all about sports!
We will do this through a series of blogs written by Dr Deacon in 2011 about the way the stadium was decided upon. At the time the Council made a whole load of minutes available, although with heavy redactions. (These days they would probably claim commercial confidentiality now they're a developer council.) What was clear was the level of collusion between planners and developers from an early stage, the active push from the planners to get the stadium sited near Truro because they thought £ would be forthcoming from the developers (wrongly as it's turned out) and the exclusion of elected representatives from the process until the decision had effectively been made. Things have obviously changed since then and we still have neither stadium nor suburb. Yet…
You may find a walk down memory lane of some interest so we will serialize the document containing the blogs, starting with Part 1 below.
Part 1: Why was Langarth chosen?
The stadium consultants looked at 27 possible sites for a Stadium, from Lanson Playing Fields in the east to Treswithian Junction west of Camborne. These were whittled down to four. Their site evaluation, involving a ‘robust’ matrix of criteria which were designed to give a spurious objectivity to the exercise, resulted in this ranking
1. Maiden Green, Truro
2. Willow Green, Truro
3. Langarth, Truro
4. Cattle Market, Truro
The problem they had was that a previous consultants’ report in 2007 had concluded that the site with the ‘greatest suitability’ was South Crofty Mine, near Camborne. But the consultants were informed by the Council that the South Crofty Mine site was unsuitable for development (although no reasons were given in their feasibility study).
It’s clear that from the minutes of the very earliest Internal Officers’ Group (IOG) meetings officers were already thinking in terms of Truro. There were several options ‘linked to development schemes in Threemilestone, Treliske and within Truro, such as the sale of Richard Lander School’ (IOG 5th Jan 2010). Nevertheless, other sites were later suggested, notably Carn Brea (IOG 30th Mar 2010). Carn Brea, unlike Threemilestone, had the advantage of direct rail access. This was important because the ‘robust’ matrix proposed by the consultants and officers stated ‘proximity to rail access’ was the most important element of its Transport criteria – with 40% weighting as opposed to just 15% for ‘proximity to A roads’. In addition the NHS representative at the first stakeholders’ meeting on 20th April 2010 suggested a site ‘nearest greatest area in [sic] inequality would encourage healthier lifestyle and more walking’. Which was taken to mean a preference for Carn Brea.
Imagine the consternation then when the consultants scored Carn Brea lower than Langarth for accessibility. This was too much even for some officers. TM (Planning) for instance questioned it at the 6th July 2010 IOG. He rightly considered that the scorings were ‘anecdotal’. At the next meeting he was still ‘not comfortable with the score for Carn Brea’ (IOG 21st July 2010)
But powerful pressures were mounting to reject Camborne-Redruth and legitimate a site in Truro. The first was the involvement of Truro City FC - ‘if the project has to include Truro FC the site will have to be within Truro’ (IOG, 27th Apr 2010)
But there were other factors too. At the 21 July IOG, JC of the Cornwall Development Company ‘noted that commercial operators are only interested in Truro, Cornish Pirates wish to be located in Truro, developers are also biased towards Truro’.
Cornwall Development Company’s enthusiastic lobbying for growth in Truro should come as no surprise but its reference to the Pirates’ preference on 21st July is odd. Because just two months earlier at the Stakeholders meeting of 20th April the Pirates themselves had explicitly stated they ‘felt that Camborne, Pool, Redruth was the area of preference as it is the rugby heartland of Cornwall [although] if the stadium is attractive to users, we don’t mind where it is’. However, the consultants’ report, produced over the winter of 2010/11, transformed this less than enthusiastic endorsement into ‘the Pirates have expressed a strong preference for Truro’ (p.22)
‘Strong’ seems to overstate things and if it was it was a very late conversion on the road to Langarth.
By November 2010 Langarth was the only game in town. The IOG was told that Langarth was the chosen site as the ‘site mix would create synergies [that magic talismanic word of the modern project class] with the nearby colleges and hospital, as well as providing financial viability’. In December the Steering Board agreed that Langarth was best because it was next door to the park and ride and close to a main road. (The rail access deemed so important six months earlier was quietly and conveniently forgotten!) Furthermore, there were already ‘negotiations with landowners’ and in any case it was ‘part of a Masterplan’.
This secretive ‘masterplan’ proceeded in a more hidden and parallel universe which involved the building of 1,500 houses right next to proposals for another 1,000+ (it’s not clear whether these were part of the same masterplan or had their own masterplans). It was clearly the key to the decision.
On 24th March 2011 the Stakeholders’ Group was assured that Langarth was preferable because of
· the commercial appeal of Truro
· adjacency to park and ride and
· link to hospital and colleges
Strangely enough there was no mention at all here of the ‘masterplan’. No matter; the Cabinet had in any case endorsed the Langarth recommendation on 16th March.
At the same time the consultants’ report summarised the reasons for Langarth at rather greater length as
· the Pirates preference for Truro (which as we have seen was a tad reluctant)
· the potential of the park and ride and the yet to be agreed eastern park and ride (neither of which were railways the last time I looked)
· the opportunities for ‘synergies’ with hospital and colleges
· and the clincher, ‘the greater appeal of Truro to the private sector and resulting greater potential to deliver enabling development and be financially viable’
But was this ‘enabling development’ more than just a background factor? Was the stadium plan merely being used to legitimate the housing? At the end of the day Langarth was chosen because of its link to the 1,500 home suburb. The only thing left was to crank up the Media Manipulation Machine to sell the message that there was absolutely no alternative to Langarth.
This is untrue. There were and are always other possibilities. But not within the rules of an economy driven by private greed and the profit motive.
So in that vein:
www.change.org/p/rt-hon-philip-hammond-mp-say-no-to-public-funding-for-stadium-for-cornwall
Previous reports relating to the dubious “Stadium for Cornwall”: