Sorry folks - this is a real long post and best read on things other than small screen phones. As promised I've written to Dulcie Tudor (LD Cornwall Councillor for Threemilestone and Strategic Planning Committee Chair, dulcie.tudor@cornwallcouncillors.org.uk) tonight about Langarth and here is the full mail.

For those really fed up with my waffle, skip to the end of the posting and the 10 questions bit will I hope give you a summary. 

Dear Dulcie,

LANGARTH 'VILLAGE'

I am grateful to you for the information that you have provided on your LD Facebook page about this ill-judged development. I’m also grateful for your responses to my questions about consultation on the updated Kenwyn and Truro Local Plan. Today I received a mail drop at the start of this consultation and was horrified to see that the Langarth development boundary now appears to be moving steadily Eastwards, extending right up to and past the Royal Cornwall Hospital on the north of the A390.

As I live in your ward, I would like to share with you some concerns that I have about the proposed Langarth ‘Village’; I do so in your capacity as Ward Councillor and also in your capacity as Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee. As these concerns may be more widely held, I intend to share the content of this e-mail and hopefully your responses with the public Facebook group: “STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF CORNWALL NOW” with which I’m sure you are familiar. None of my comments here are intended to be criticisms of you and I truly recognise that you also have misgivings about the Langarth development and its impact upon Threemilestone (TMS) and Gloweth.

Before detailing my concerns, I need to make it clear that I know that planning permission has been given for several thousand houses (I believe 2,700 homes), a retail park, a hotel and the Stadium. As such I reluctantly accept that we are where we are and that it is impractical to try to revisit or oppose decisions already made, however ridiculous they may now seem.

As there are planning approvals for 2,700 homes, the Langarth Development is the biggest residential programme ever to be undertaken in Cornwall. It will increase Truro’s population from 21,000 to around 30,000 (a 50% increase). With the growing potential of 4,000 homes, the population of Truro would get some 15,000 new residents, which is the equivalent of glueing Redruth or Bodmin onto the West side of Truro.

So why does there seem to be no coherent approach at all to this programme of work? It may just be that Cornwall Council keeps Cornish residents poorly informed, but to me it looks like a series of fragmented tasks, undertaken in the wrong order, with the scope to generate complete chaos.

Look for example at Councillor Egerton’s recent lengthy address to the Council Meeting, usefully published on your Facebook page, regarding the progress of the land transfer for the Stadium. He talks of expecting other parties to bite the Council’s hand off and admits embarrassment at the delay.

WHY embarrassment at the delay? My understanding is that Cornwall Council has pledged £3 million of our money, but this was conditional on HMG also stumping up £3 million. HMG still to my knowledge hasn’t pledged anything, and has reported concerns about the quality of the business case. So it appears that the Council is charging head down into effecting a land transfer when £6 million of public funding remains in doubt. If HMG wants the land transfer assured first, then the Council can I’m sure contract to effect the transfer subject to a single condition which is HMG’s pledge of funding. In my view it should certainly not make the land transfer first and hope for the best. If I was Councillor Egerton I’d be more concerned about whether the business case for this part of the ‘Village’ was robust, or whether it was simply a work of wishful thinking. The order of events I would suggest is: get the business case right and IF it ‘holds water’; secure all funding (albeit conditional on a land transfer); and only then transfer the Stadium land.

If third parties are using the Stadium land as leverage, I don’t consider it a prudent use of our money for the Council to start buying other tracts of land held by these parties, simply in order to secure the Stadium land transfer more quickly. Particularly when the value of this land has been inflated by the same Council granting planning permission on it and when the Council is racking up legal costs prior to the purchases. Councillor Egerton reportedly speaks of the Council providing these third parties with a postal order from auntie. More correctly, under any such scheme it isn’t auntie but the residents of Cornwall who will be providing this super present to the third parties – whilst Council Taxes rise at the maximum allowable rate in 2020/2021, despite overwhelming opposition to more increases.

I would also ask what safeguards exist when the Stadium Project overruns its cost budgets. It has been said that this Council couldn’t run a bath and as such its involvement in the Stadium is unlikely to go well. The Council is already into overspend generally and cites its Oracle Cloud IT project as overrunning by nearly £3 million. How can the residents of Cornwall have any confidence that something as complex as a project to build a Stadium for Cornwall will fare any better? To use again the allusion of running a bath, this Council seems to think that if the bath leaks, simply turning on the taps more fully by increasing Council Tax will leave things nicely filled up. So when the Stadium overruns, and the Pirates can’t increase their funding because the RFU has halved its contribution (as per recent press reports) and HMG won’t stump up any more cash, what protects us from Cornwall Council bleating that the Stadium is 75% built and the only solution is to pass the hat around Council Tax payers (again) to fund the final 25%? Surely, the Council wouldn’t put the people it serves in that position – or would it?

Comments by Councillor Egerton that the Council were "a bit baffled by the press releases being put out by the Pirates before Christmas saying they were changing things about the Stadium", do not give the impression of a cohesive project group either. I believe that the context of these comments was the community use of the Stadium – which is a long-standing prerequisite for the folk of TMS, and Cornwall generally and a prerequisite for the use of public money.

So unless I've misunderstood, or have been poorly briefed, it seems to me we have a chaotic Stadium project, with stakeholders already differing and publicly contradicting each other; plus an apparent lack of future proofing and contingency planning.

All of which seems like a useful cue to turn to the larger and apparently even more chaotic aspects of the wider Langarth Programme.

I’ve tried in vain to look at all the Langarth planning permissions on the Council’s Planning Portal (which incidentally is about as user-friendly as a cornered rat). There are vast numbers of different applications, permissions, conditions and reserved matters. The whole programme is a complex labyrinth of planning terminology and fragmented proposals. So, as Chair of Strategic Planning, do you have any single document which shows you and the members of your Committee, in an understandable summary form, what are the overall permissions and plans for Langarth? In effect a ‘Scope of Works’ document. And do you have a running update provided on the various conditions and reserved matters for these plans and when these are met, signed off, or more importantly when an application is made for them to be varied?

If Council Officers are not providing this comprehensive over-arching summary, and regular updates to Councillors, then how are the interests of Cornish residents being protected?

By way of an example – a condition of one of the multi-housing applications is that contractor works can only be carried out during certain hours so that residents in your Ward have some quality of life during Langarth construction phases. Have you even been made aware of such a condition and would you be aware if the applicant simply applied to vary or remove this condition – and gained approval to do so under delegated powers? Equally importantly, do your electorate know of the protection offered by such conditions and how vital it is they aren’t lifted?

I believe it is both unreasonable and impossible to expect our elected representatives to act correctly if they are forced to trudge through the maze of applications, reserved matters and conditions to try and discern their collective effects on wards and upon their electorate. And to ensure protection of the electorate, why wouldn’t every material variation of planning conditions at Langarth need to have Full Committee approval and not simply delegated authority? Very few of Cornwall’s population have any faith in delegated approval by unaccountable Council Officers.

So as the Chair of The Committee, do you have the necessary information in clear digestible form, in order that you can exert proper governance over this ‘Village’ development? If so, I’d welcome seeing it. If not, could you press Council Officers to provide a clear summary to you without delay? And perhaps ask the Ward Councillor (Councillor Dyer?) to insist on Full Committee approval of any material variance to existing permissions and planning conditions at Langarth?

In my trudge through the maze of applications, I saw "PA19/07610 | EIA Scoping Opinion Request for proposed residential development of up to 4,000 new homes” at Langarth. And also “PA19/07921 Full planning application for the development of a 78 bed hotel with integral bar / breakfast facility, a Drive Thru restaurant (A3 / A5), pump station, access, parking, landscaping, infrastructure and associated works. Maiden Green Threemilestone Truro Cornwall TR3 6BA”

Given the current fragmentation and chaos which is the Langarth Development, how on earth can your Strategic Committee have any sensible opinion on increasing the number of houses to 4,000 or plonking a further hotel and drive-through on the McDonalds roundabout at Gloweth.

I’m afraid that I perceive a complete lack of any sort of vision upon which you can base your strategic decisions and instead just see a lot of chickens running around looking for their heads. I would suggest it is high time that the Council called a halt to further large scale and multiple housing applications within Langarth and Gloweth, on the basis that existing permissions already entirely over-develop the site and its infrastructure without adding yet more schemes to the mix.

If you need just a few examples of infrastructure overload, just try to drive into Truro from the West at rush hour with current traffic volumes and then consider adding 4,000 houses, a couple of hotels, a retail park, a drive thru, and of course a stadium to the current traffic gridlock. Alternatively, take a look at the River Kenwyn after any appreciable rainfall as it tumbles into Truro. The river is muddy brown with the run off from the Langarth Valley and roars as it passes down into the City. Then consider concreting and tarmacking over the valley and imagine how much water will shoot off from housing estates (or the Village, if we must call it that) un-absorbed by any land as it floods down into Truro.

The level of permissions currently granted in Langarth is ridiculous – adding more would just be farcical.

I am not anti-Stadium, nor anti-development. I admit I think the Stadium location is inappropriate, but I don’t object to a properly sited Stadium for Cornwall, built under a controlled project and with public benefits. I do object to the Council performing poodle tricks to try and secure stadium land though.

I support housing development – where it has been sensibly planned and where the appropriate percentage of any developed housing estate is affordable. You might recall I wrote to you specifically about the Neighbourhood Plan stipulating 35% affordable homes in any development and asking whether this was being complied with at Langarth. You said you would circulate my question among your Planning Committee colleagues – but I heard no more. I went to a Council Officer who replied that Langarth permission was given before the Neighbourhood Plan was completed and therefore was granted under HMG sustainable development stipulations.

What the Officer failed to say was that prior to any Neighbourhood Plan there was a document entitled: “Land North of the A390 Truro/Threemilestone Development Brief" which was signed by Councillor Mark Kaczmarek the then Cabinet Member for Housing and Planning, in 2012. This document states that it precedes "the emerging Neighbourhood Plan" and assures the Cornish electorate that "at least 35% affordable Housing [would be included at Langarth] in accordance with the Council Balancing Housing Markets Development Plan Document". Therefore residents have been led to believe for nearly a decade that Langarth would have ‘at least’ 35% affordable homes; not ‘up to 35%’ or any other form of weasel words.

So in conclusion, there are some significant questions in my mind about Langarth ‘Village’:

1.    Why is Langarth not being run as a well structured development programme?

2.    Why is Councillor Egerton charging forward with land transfers when it appears both the business case for the Stadium and the public funding are far from robust or secured?

3.    Why are Cornwall Council contemplating buying other development land at Langarth from third parties – having first inflated its price by granting planning permission?

4.    What protects Cornish Council Tax payers from future over-runs in parts of the Programme where Cornwall Council is part-financing matters?

5.    Why are stakeholders in the Stadium even now disagreeing in public statements about the eventual scope and use of the facility and doesn’t this sound loud alarm bells?

6.    How in the morass of planning applications on the Council’s portal can the Planning Committee gain any straightforward view of Langarth and its huge infrastructure impact?

7.    Without clear summary information about Langarth 'Village' how can a further 1,300 houses and applications for a further hotel, drive-through and so on even be considered?

8.    How can reserved matters and changes in Langarth’s vital planning conditions be best monitored by Councillors in this morass and not just signed off under delegated powers?

9.    Why does the Council not simply call a stop to further sizeable developments in Langarth, TMS, and Gloweth until the effects of existing permitted builds are known and suffered?

10.   Why does there seem to be far too little focus on:

1.    The infrastructure demands of the current over-development of West Truro?

2.    The conformity of developers to the 35% affordable homes stipulations?

3.    The environmental impact – given the Council’s recent statements in this regard?

I’m acutely aware that this is a long email but hopefully the 10 questions above summarise matters a little and I believe it is useful to set out these concerns in context rather than as a series of disjointed forays. If you’ve stayed with the mail thus far – thanks for listening. I am very heartened by some of your recent comments which provide some much needed comfort here in your ward and elsewhere in Cornwall.

Kind regards,
John

Hello folks,

Here is Dulcie Tudor's reply to my fairly detailed series of questions about Langarth. At the foot of this posting is my further comment back to her in response. I have also added Councillor Egerton's later response which takes us no further forward at this point. I wasn't overly surprised. It does however create a serious issue about Councillor representation going forward - please see the comments.

Dear John,

I am passing your email on to the Portfolio for Planning Cllr. Bob Egerton for reply.

To be clear this is because Cllr. Egerton’s remit makes him responsible for Cornwall Council planning matters to do with Langarth.

There seems to be a misconception that as Chair of CC’s Strategic Planning Committee I can somehow stop developments going ahead. This is a misunderstanding of the role of the Chair.

You will not be aware, but I have been advised by Cornwall Councils Corporate and Information Governance Manager Simon Mansell that I cannot Chair the Strategic Planning Committee, sit on the Committee, take part in any debate as part of the Committee, speak at the Committee Meeting as a Cornwall Councillor or even be in the room, or the public gallery when items relating to Langarth are being discussed.

The reasoning behind that decision being, that as Chair of the Langarth Stake holder Panel I have a non-registerable interest in Langarth Garden Village?!

The legal argument is set out here. I am currently challenging the decision.

“In terms of your membership of the stakeholder panel as has been explained this creates a non-registerable interest as you are a member of a group of body whose well being will be affected by the decision and a reasonable person with knowledge of the facts would consider that this would prejudice your judgement of the public interest.

You have a non-registerable interest where a decision in relation to a matter being determined or to be determined:

(i) might reasonably be regarded as affecting the financial position or well being of you; a member of your family or any person with whom you have a close association; or any body or group which you are a member of more than it might affect the majority of council tax payers, rate payers or inhabitants in your electoral division or area; and

(ii) the interest is such that a reasonable person with knowledge of all the relevant facts would consider your interest so significant that it is likely to prejudice your judgement of the public interest;”

What I can do in the meantime, and what I have been endeavouring to do for the past 2 and half years is try my best to represent the residents in my Ward (Threemilestone and Gloweth).

I’m sorry if the tone of this reply is somewhat hard, but I am rather tired of being asked to defend decisions that were taken long before I joined the Council and matters that I have no influence over.

Although of course it will be me standing in Threemilestone Community Centre on March 6th at the Public Consultation talking to the public and not Cllr Egerton. I will ask that he attends.

Thank you

Cllr. Dulcie Tudor.

Hello Dulcie,

I'll await Cllr Egerton's reply with interest and will reflect some more on your comments before replying to you a little more fully, if indeed I decide to.

By way of an immediate reaction though, I think you have misconstrued the tone of my approach if you are as you say "rather tired of being asked to defend decisions that were taken long before I joined the Council and matters that I have no influence over."

You'll note I hope my sentence in the email that "None of my comments here are intended to be criticisms of you and I truly recognise that you also have misgivings about the Langarth development and its impact upon Threemilestone (TMS) and Gloweth." and also that I say "I reluctantly accept that we are where we are and that it is impractical to try to revisit or oppose decisions already made, however ridiculous they may now seem.".

The points made in my mail refer to what might be done going forwards to mitigate the effects of those decisions and avoid adding further poor ones to them.

I am sorry that you find your hands tied in relation to Langarth - but internal politics in Cornwall Council are hardly my fault and I know only too well how having one's hands tied feels in relation to this development. So I truly sympathise.

That said and for the record your mail comes over as petulant and less than helpful. I trust Cllr Egerton will be a little more constructive.

Yours,

John C.

(Gloweth Resident)

Dear John,

Thank you for your email with its many questions about Langarth.

I will almost certainly be asked a question at Full Council by one or more members about Langarth and our dealings with Inox.

I hope to be in a position to make a clear statement at that time about the situation.

After that meeting, if you wish to write to me again with, preferably, a somewhat shorter list of questions, I will do my best to answer them.

Yours sincerely

Bob Egerton

Dear Councillor Egerton,

I will await the Full Council so that you are not duplicating your responses. Those questions that remain to be responded to, please be assured, I will put to you again.

Yours sincerely,

John C.

The next Full Cornwall Council meeting is on 25th February 2020 at Lys Kernow (Treyew Road, Truro) https://democracy.cornwall.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CId=584&Year=0