John Betty, Cornwall Council’s truly ghastly and grossly overpaid (c £250k pa), Teflon-coated, so-called “consultant” to Cornwall Council, has the temerity to suggest that “Cornwall and its people lack ambition”.

If insisting that £600 million is borrowed by Cornwall’s tax payers (generally without their knowledge or approval) to finance a dodgy housing project that the private sector won’t touch with a barge pole, then maybe, in that context, yes we are “unambitious”, Mr Betty!

COUNCILLOR EGERTON'S CURIOUS CHANGE OF TACK.

The email below comprehensively detailing the financial convolutions of the Inox Group quite rightly seriously questions the organisation's financial credibility, indeed what Councillor Egerton says could be interpreted as scathingly critical of Mr Saltmarsh and should be applauded.

One cannot help but wonder when Councillor Egerton experienced his ''Damascus moment'' by becoming ''Bob the Builder'' he morphed into an enthusiastic promoter of the Langarth project which began when Inox won a highly controversial but potentially very lucrative planning permission which to date has not proceeded presumably due to lack of cash.

Then along comes Bristol based consultant John Betty who like a white knight proposed that Cornwall Council raise £600 million to, among other things, ''prime the pump'' to develop Langarth for ''affordable'' (to whom?) housing in partnership with Sanctuary Housing Association which appears to potentially dig Inox out of a very deep financial black hole.

This raises some very serious questions that Cornwall Council have been reluctant to accept or acknowledge let alone answer:

1- What persuaded Councillor Egerton to make a full U turn from a scathing critic of Inox and Langarth to an enthusiastic promoter of the project?

2- What role did John Betty really play to create this remarkable about turn even after Cornwall's Chief Planner made a cringe inducing confession that ''Langarth was a mess''?

3- The most serious question of all being that given John Betty's self- confessed very extensive network of connections in the property sector on the business networking site Linkedin, it is highly improbable that he did not know Robert Saltmarsh possibly on quite a close personal basis

4- This raises a further question, has there been a conflict of interest between Mr Betty and Mr Saltmash in their presumably extensive dealings with Cornwall Council.

5- If so, why was no interest ever declared and why did no one at Cornwall Council even bother to question the situation when it was glaringly obvious from the outset that Mr Saltmarsh was in fact a man of straw?

To date, Cornwall Council has displayed outright hostility toward these highly relevant questions refusing point blank to acknowledge them let alone answer them.

COUNCILLOR EGERTON'S EMAIL DATED AROUND THE 27th FEBRUARY 2012 TO ALL MEMBERS OF CORNWALL COUNCIL:

"Inox is the organisation that applied for planning permission for the Stadium for Cornwall and is also hoping to develop a large number of houses in that area.

You may be curious to find out who Inox really are.

Website

There is a website www.inoxgroup.co.uk
In the section of the website entitled "Projects", there are 6 pages as follows:
Olympia, Glasgow Coming soon.
Truro, Cornwall Coming soon.
North Devon Coming soon.
Whitby, Yorkshire Coming soon.
Sandy, Bedfordshire Coming soon.
South Devon Coming soon.

Curious that there is no mention of projects that have actually been finished, or even started.

The address for Inox Group is given as The Senate Building, Southernhay Gardens, Exeter.

Nice prestigious address.

Although the Inox group has ambitions to deliver a £300 million build project in Truro, they are keeping their costs down by not taking a vast amount of office space on a long lease; instead, they are renting a serviced office from Forsyth Business Centre in that building.

This could be as little as a workstation and a phone line.

Very prudent.

In the section "About Us", there is wording on Our Vision, Our Objectives and Our Prospects, but no mention of any particular individuals or even of any particular limited company.

Inox Group is not a registered limited company, although there are a few registered limited companies with the word Inox in the title (more later).

Technically, it is an offence under the Companies Act not to display on a business website the name of the legal organisation, whether it be a sole trader, partnership or limited company that is responsible for the site.

In the case of a limited company this should include the proper registered name of the company and the registered number.

However, this is probably just an oversight and I expect that Devon Trading Standards have got more pressing issues on their desks to pursue.

Limited companies:

The title Inox Group is not specific as to what it encompasses. However, there are 3 limited companies with the first word Inox in their names that have The Senate Building, Exeter as their registered office address.

There is also Exemplar Projects (Truro) Ltd. at the same address.

Some information about these companies (all in the public domain at Companies House) is as follows:

Inox Property Ltd. incorporated 2008 last accounts up to 28/2/10 showed a net worth of minus £72k.

The following year's accounts have not yet been submitted and are marked in Companies House as "Overdue".

Inox Capital Ltd. incorporated 2010 with no accounts yet filed although accounts were due to be filed by 19/2/12, but Companies House has them marked as "Overdue".

Inox Capital Investment Ltd incorporated 2010 accounts to 30/6/11 filed and marked as "Dormant", i.e. no significant financial transaction had occurred in the period covered by the accounts.

Exemplar Projects (Truro) Ltd. incorporated 2009 accounts to 30/11/10 filed and marked as "Dormant".

Mr Robin Saltmarsh is a director of all four of those companies his fellow directors vary by company, but they all have the surname Saltmarsh.

Mr Robin Saltmarsh is also a director of Cornwall Community Stadium Ltd., the recently formed company that is the planned vehicle for the stadium project (co-directors are a Truro College employee and a person with a London address.)

Mr Saltmarsh is also a director of 5 other companies:

Moorlands (Whitby) Ltd.

Sustainable Projects (Sandy) Ltd.

Riversvale Ltd.

Ikona Developments Ltd.

122 Kew Road Ltd.

The accounts for the first two of those companies are marked as dormant the accounts of the other three are all marked by Companies House as "Overdue".

So, Mr Saltmarsh is a director of nine companies as well as the Stadium company of those nine companies, the accounts for four are dormant, the accounts for the other five are overdue in Companies House.

One could say that being late with the submission of one set of accounts is unfortunate; being late with two sets of accounts could be seen as careless; I am not sure what the right adjective is to describe being late with five sets of accounts.

Inox has promised to make a substantial financial contribution towards the Stadium project. (I cannot tell you how much they have promised because that was in part 2 of the Environment and Economy Scrutiny Committee meeting last week.)

The problem is that I do not know where the money is going to come from.

It certainly cannot come from within the balance sheets of any of the "Inox Group".

Perhaps they are waiting on a postal order from their auntie?"

End of Councillor Egerton’s email.

Comment from Cornish Solidarity: Or perhaps a covert bailout by Cornwall’s increasingly frustrated and indebted Council taxpayers?

Despite this clear evidence (of poor business practice by the INOX Group), Cornwall Council continued to deal with them… and still does to this day… John Betty anyone?