Cornwall Councillor Bob Egerton, Cabinet Member for Planning and Economy, recently expressed his opinion that the Council’s hyper-development agenda for Cornwall is “good news” without, of course, explaining how he has arrived at that most preposterous of conclusions, when all the evidence around us suggests the opposite.

Mr Egerton (not so affectionately known as ‘Bob the Builder’ in certain circles) had received correspondence from a resident of Grampound, highly concerned about the environmental degradation caused by the accelerating urbanisation of Cornwall, and the accompanying congestion and pollution caused by the increasing number of cars on the road resulting from the Council’s eagerness to ramp up population growth through in-migration.

Mr. Egerton’s dismissive reply blandly stated that the problems were not due to population growth caused by excessive home building, but by an increase in car ownership – a slightly less fatuous reworking of his infamous and foolish mantra that “homes don’t drive cars, people do.” His solution to this problem was simple – build a ‘new community’ of up to 3,000 houses at Langarth. Mr Egerton reasoned that the people occupying these new homes would, being near to Truro, somehow renounce the motor car and utilise public transport. Bob Egerton, perhaps being deliberately obtuse – after all, nobody could really be that stupid, could they? - seems unable to grasp the principle of cause and effect, as it is obvious that increasing the population of Cornwall by marketing these new homes up-country also increases the number of vehicles on our roads. He was unable to say anything positive about environmental degradation - presumably because there isn’t anything positive to say about it. However, he was swift to pass the blame of pollution on to the government for encouraging diesel cars. He was also keen to blame the lack of affordable housing and the poor quality of new housing on central government – Cornwall Council, apparently, being blameless for all the problems we are now subjected to.

Mr. Egerton subsequently went on to say that “Cornwall has to build its share of the houses that are needed across the country.” Our correspondent then provided evidence from a respected academic which showed that, far from providing a ‘fair share’ of housing, pro rata 37% more houses were built in Cornwall than in England in 2015. In 2016 that rose to 41% and in 2017 to 52%. Mr Egerton, unable to challenge these figures, accepted them, but felt strangely reluctant to comment on whether, in light of this information, he now felt Cornwall’s housing development to be a ‘fair share’ or not.

Then, having been unable to come up with any thoughts whatsoever as to why Cornwall should take more than its ‘fair share’ of housing development, and seemingly failing to understand the implications of unsustainable population growth, Mr Egerton then decided to simply brazen it out by flatly stating that he believed “the performance of Cornwall in house building.......is good news”, without attempting to justify this preposterous claim. Now that absurd claims by people like Councillor Timothy Dwelly (“80% of new housing goes to local people”) have been de-bunked, it seems the latest tactic is to simply state that the never-ending disappearance of Cornwall under concrete, and its rapidly increasing population, is ‘good news’ - without, of course, explaining why.

For those of us who have watched in horror as the Council’s hopeless mismanagement of planning spirals out of control, we are now expected to believe that:

relentless urbanisation is ‘good news’
increasing traffic congestion and pollution is ‘good news’
the destruction of wildlife habitats is ‘good news’
the accelerating loss of tranquillity is’good news’
the degradation of local landscapes and people’s sense of place is ‘good news’
the swamping of ancient towns and villages by poor quality, inappropriate development is ‘good news’
the problems of exceeding capacity at Treliske is ‘good news’
the replacement of Cornish culture with a materialistic, urban-centric one is ‘good news’
increasing levels of waste in Cornwall is ‘good news’

Unfortunately for Mr Egerton, people prefer to believe the evidence of their own eyes rather than the increasingly desperate nonsense that he and his colleagues resort to in order to try and justify the Council’s reckless, irresponsible and dangerous approach to planning in Cornwall. They are, indeed, the enemies of truth and beauty.

Meanwhile we hear that another architect of Cornwall’s destruction, John Betty, who we thought had left the employ of the Council, has been re-appointed to carry on his bad work at the offensive salary of £260,000 (pro rata). It is appalling that our taxes are paying for these people to cause so much damage and unhappiness.

Sadly, Bob Egerton and John Betty are far from alone in this Cornish concrete school of thought; others include Tim Dwelly, Colin Martin, Derek Holley, Mark Kaczmarek, Cornelius Olivier, Graham Coad, John Pollard, Adam Paynter, Richard Pugh, Peter Williams, Mike Eathorne-Gibbons, and of course, Phil Mason, among others...