An angry exchange at Kremlin Kernow (aka Cornwall Council) exposes the fault lines as Councillor Andrew Mitchell bites back at Councillor Barry Jordan.
This vexed question about who is actually housing inward migrants needs answering once and for all.
I believe Councillor Andrew Mitchell when he says that Cornwall Council are NOT building houses for undesirables from elsewhere.
Is it possible that the real culprits are the housing associations which began life as a good idea but some of them have morphed into monsters who may be responsible for the import of the sometimes skanky individuals that definitely seem to be popping up in increasing numbers.
You only have to stand at a supermarket check out and listen to the big city accents that often predominate in recent years in tune with the development boom.
These characters are here in numbers and the problems they bring are becoming our problems by altering the character of Cornwall in a very negative manner.
Someone has facilitated their arrival by housing them, and if it isn't Cornwall Council, the housing associations must be prime suspects.
This is bound to cause resentment among local people who still can’t get a home of their own, and quite rightly so.
So crack on Councillor Mitchell and get those council houses built or bought as the case may be.
His angry reaction to Councillor Barry Jordan's stinging points hint at the level of pressure Councillor Mitchell is under but Councillor Jordan is also spot on when he talks of the damage being done by excess development without proper infrastructure provision.
This needs to stop with a development moratorium imposed until SWW gets its act together and stops polluting our watercourses with raw sewage that it cannot handle at its overloaded treatment works.
South Hampshire Council have recently imposed a development moratorium due to sewage pollution in the Solent on account of STW's that cannot handle the effluent volumes created by massive new housing developments.
If South Hampshire Council can do it so can Cornwall Council!
SWW are happy to accept the huge connection fees that developers pay but they pay far too much of their bloated profits out to investors and far too little is invested in their vital infrastructure which evidence suggests is not up to the job.
In a nutshell a torrent of shit both literal and metaphorical is heading their way which will lead to their collective unravelling in the very near future!
Shouting at each other will solve nothing but a bit of good old-fashioned common sense might.
Quote from Councillor BOB EGERTON 25th February 2020:
“We have threatened to walk away from it, but our officers asked me not to walk away.''
Conservative group leader Linda Taylor asked if the council was looking to go ahead with Langarth “at any cost”.
Cllr Egerton replied: “Not at any cost, we have spent a lot of money. But we have told Mr Saltmarsh that we will have to walk away and spend our money elsewhere.
“We are very keen on getting Langarth developed but our patience is not unlimited.”
This statement from Councillor Egerton proves beyond reasonable doubt the utter self-inflicted mess that Cornwall Council are in, as a result of officers being given free rein.
All Cornwall Councillors should examine their consciences and make the right decision that they are beholden to us rather than to Inox, and vote to walk away from the Langarth fiasco.
The Cornwall Council officers concerned SHOULD BE FIRED, as our petition demands, for failing Cornwall.
Then and only then can our Councillors reasonably expect to be accorded the degree of respect they should be entitled to, for doing their jobs correctly.
Just crack on and spend our money more wisely elsewhere.
SWW EA REPORT DAMMING
www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/south-west-water-slapped-red-3074980
It's all about money in this unsavoury incestuous circle of mutual back-scratching and self interest!
The former SAS CEO, Ms Vicky Garner, was married to Matthew (now Lord) Taylor of Goss Moor, who is a director of SWW, so it is a pretty safe bet to say that SAS simply sold out but kept the brand going, to keep the money rolling in.
Ms Garner now runs “Garner and Tonic”, a PR agency that works for SWW and, until recently, did work for Cornwall Council in connection with the Langarth project.
Ain't it a small world in the cozy gravy train zone of revolving doors and mutual back scratching?!
All that is missing is Councillor Egerton’s fabled 'postal order from auntie'!
It is a pretty safe bet that aunty’s postal order will actually arrive from the Kremlin when they bail out Inox with our money!
You could not make this up! See below
Stadium rocks as Bob looks for the Inox piggy-bank
Graham Smith Monday, 27 February 2012
Cornwall Council insists it has no plans to spend public money on the proposed Truro stadium. Would the offer of soft loans, guarantees and infrastructure costs - if such offers were ever to be made - count as spending public money? I'm only asking - but until the council puts someone up for interview on this it's going to be hard to be sure.
This is the 2012 email which is a stunning de-construction of Inox from councillor Bob Egerton to all members of Cornwall Council that mentions the 'postal order from auntie'.
Councillor Egerton has certainly changed his tune in the interim.
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 individual 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 than 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. No accounts yet filed. 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 Auntie?
One resident comments:
“I hope this Council is around when I want to sell a used car. Don't they call it "Sunk Cost Fallacy" when you fail to walk away from something you've expended disproportionate time and money on. Let's have a Stadium - but put it somewhere else. CC could have afforded alternative land several times over I suspect for the fees and time currently spent. Then compulsorily purchase the Inox 'gift' which they've usefully valued at £1 and plant trees which can be enjoyed by the new residents and which will aid CC's environmental targets. Next !!”
And if you ever had any concerns about Southwest Water, who supply you daily services for water and sewerage, here's a letter from one Cornish resident to its CEO, Chris Loughlin; it makes for some very uncomfortable reading:
Date: 30 August 2015 at 18:44:59 BST
To: Chris Loughlin CEO SWW <cloughlin@southwestwater.co.uk>
Subject: CEO South West water makes it 'personal' with customers
Dear Mr Loughlin
I would like to present you with some facts.
I have not received any form of reply from my previous emails and have not received an out-of-office reply to suggest that you are on leave. I feel a week is more than enough to answer a few simple questions. One that I would like to repeat is: Why would you, CEO SWW, make repeated sewerage flooding incidents personal to one domestic customer (and others) and call one a 'troublemaker'?
Residents remain anxious and distressed after last week's sewerage flooding incident. One resident has been extremely unwell this week as a result.
I would like to repeat concerns as to your personal involvement in the Sellafield/ Mox scandal. You were CEO Thorpe Plant employed by BNFL responsible for Mox when uranium and plutonium cargo was refused by Japan. Clearly the reasons for the failures were highlighted by the British Nuclear Fuels Installations Inspectorate Report (pdf attached for ease of reference) as 'systemic management failure', falsification of data and 'cover ups'. I refer you to this article http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/anger-at-mox-scandal-payoff-1.473242 This is very concerning for your customers, especially given the sensitivity of the water industry in the South West post Camelford aluminium water poisoning and the fact that SWW, as a public utility, have an exemption to Freedom of Information requests, making your data unavailable for public scrutiny.
If you cannot transport nuclear fuel safely, why should the people of the South West trust you to transport our most precious resource: water?
In my opinion it is evident that again, you have brought your very “special/unique” management style to SWW. It would appear to some, that systemic management failure is rife within SWW. We already have recorded evidence of 'cover ups' within your company. This, combined with SWW/Pennon threatening customers’ solicitors, using gagging orders and then continuing to flood them with sewage, is totally barbaric, in my opinion.
Even Mr Cameron and his family are not safe in Cornwall, it seems. Perhaps the Prime Minister might care to speak to victims of sewerage flooding, here in Cornwall, and learn how they are expected to live in a sewage-infested area, with homes that are constantly at risk of further flooding blighting their lives?
It seems the press have flocked to cover the story:
www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/28/camerons-surfing-polluted-sewage-polzeath-beach-cornwall
Perhaps you may care to visit the area one day in order to see for yourself? Fact - Brooks Corner is still flooding and its residents, homes, gardens and cars remain at risk from SWW sewerage, with one property on the DG5 register; in fact, you personally gave an assurance to the then MP, Stephen Gilbert, in writing, that this property would be off DG5, in September 2014.
If you have any comments with regards to these facts, I suggest you take them up with the relevant authors. If I have misunderstood anything, I would happily stand corrected.
I look forward to your reply by close of business, 4th September 2015.
Regards
Andrew