Thanks to the ingenuity of new Economic Guru at Cornwall Council, John Betty from Bristol (and based in Bristol), who believes that borrowing another £600 million is value for money for Cornish council tax payers, we are now seeing the plan to build a new town between Treliske and Chiverton Cross come to fruition. So when Strategic Director for Planning end Economy, Phil Mason, then Chief planner, called Truro’s “Western Corridor” development “a mess” just two years ago, we now realise that the cost of cleaning up the mess will in effect be to add more mess, and a bigger bill for Cornish residents. Seems to make sense to most Cornwall Councillors, at least…. God help us if these are the intelligent leaders in our community!

How and when did growth and economy turn into a fall in living standards, a collapse in services, a daily and exponentially ballooning traffic nightmare, parking charges at Treliske Hospital – and all over our towns and beaches – no more room at surgeries, schools and dental practices?

Do Cornwall Councillors live in a parallel world? Are they immune to the chaos they are helping unleash around us? Do they all live 24/7 in fortress Treyew at Lys Kernow, where they simply occasionally look through the arrowslits at the Cornish mortals falling like flies outside, painfully trying to reach Treliske Hopsital from Arch Hill, in traffic whose fumes is not only endangering the lives of school children and those below, in Truro City centre, but which was free-flowing just a few short years ago… and certainly in this century, when we were obviously so backward, we needed help from big city professionals like Kate Kennally and John Betty, to move us into the 21st century, thanks to their links to corporate developers and champagne festivals in Cannes (MIPIM).

We need homes: Yes.

We need affordable homes: Yes.

We need quality homes: Yes.

We need homes for young local families: Yes.

We need more social housing: Yes.

What we don’t need is a spineless Cornwall Council cabinet, complicit planning department and dubiously driven directorate, playing the developers’ tune to build anything but these, at 2.7 times the rate of development of anywhere in the UK, all over our greenbelts, greenfields, farms, woodland, pastures and meadows, along this thin strip of land, purely for profit that will benefit NOBODY in Cornwall, but put astronomical pressure on our crumbling infrastructure as well as adding an untold debt burden on future generations of Cornish kids.

To Cornwall Council Cabinet, councillors, planners and lawyers:

Think before you blindly comply, cave in and betray your local communities.

The Local Plan is anything but local; do something about it before the damage gets any worse.

Cornwall Council – celebrating 25 years of incompetence, ineptitude, backhanders, complicity and betrayal of Cornwall:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-47613496

As one commentator said: “unbelievable!”

Well, if you’re out and about, driving around Cornwall today, all too believable….