Despite the obvious anger at the very well attended meeting in Penryn last month, re. the Mabe quarry catastrophe for local jobs, trade, traffic and quality granite, Cornwall Council planners (from planet somewhere!) overturn the many sensible objections and give their developer friends the greenlight! I expect we’ll hear more about this latest outrage from Phil Mason and his merry men…

www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/controversial-housing-plan-could-threaten-2515118

Meanwhile, as council supremos, John Betty and Kate Kennally, push ahead with huge borrowing plans on behalf of Cornish tax payers (and presumably to be repaid over several more generations of Cornish kids), with the first tranche of the £600m planned to support developers at Chiverton Cross (Langarth and Maiden Green), Network Rail carve out a quiet little profit on the side, thanks to freight space around Dobbs Lane in Truro, that hopefully will slip under the radar, courtesy of planning officer, Matt Doble, another compliant and probably well oiled little council yes man, with presumably bigger plans back up country once his CV has been enhanced urban Cornwall-style. And nobody cares.... other than one concerned councillor, whose letter below rings several very loud alarm bells:

“This afternoon at 2pm, I attended a presentation by Network Rail who have decided that they would like to build 150 houses/apartments in the goods yard at Truro Station (where the present Cornwall Farmers buildings are situated). There is no easy access to this development and so they have decided to build a road up the embankment to come out on Dobbs Lane. Apparently, this was a “private” pre- application and the Planning officer, Matt Doble, seemingly did not raise any objections!! Then he was informed that the land was earmarked in the Truro and Kenwyn Neighbourhood Plan to be for freight purposes only.

So all the network Rail representatives came along this afternoon to prove that the land was no longer required for railway/freight purposes.

I reminded them that the present trains emitted Diesel fumes which would in turn not meet the expected Air Quality standards, that the Truro Newham Treatment works were declared over capacity in June 2017 and that the proposed access was considered unsatisfactory, but they replied that these “details” had not yet been considered. I despair!

Then this evening, at the Truro City Council meeting, we had an outline application in respect of Langarth. I was under the impression that when Cornwall Council agreed to borrow £159million to indulge themselves in speculative building, there was to be a state-of-the-art masterplan for Langarth. But it seems this is not the case, as the application was from Mr. Richard Walker, who in addition to the Maiden Green site, has now acquired the Willow Green site as well, making the total area in his ownership 150 acres, which must be over a third of the Langarth Development plan; yet still we have no masterplan - so what is going on?

Tomorrow CPRE Devon have called a meeting in Tavistock at 10am. They have now calculated that Devon can reduce its housing development numbers by 40% due to the Office of National Statistics (ONS) having miscalculated the number of houses required in the UK. We need to understand how they arrived at this percentage so that we can start working on the Local Plan numbers agreed for Cornwall, as well as ascertain how this affects the 5 year land supply.”