Everywhere you look, around Cornwall, unsustainable, inappropriate, hugely unpopular and damaging mass development is blighting the once unique Cornish environment, simply to satisfy short term profiteering objectives; below is a small snapshot of recent outrages and aberrations:
Carlyon Bay:
www.cornwalllive.com/news/local-news/carlyon-bay-beach-development-plan-4498027
www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/carlyon-bay-housing-leisure-project-4495569
Mawgan Porth:
https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/shopping-centre-15-apartments-plan-4492596
Rock and Polzeath:
“Cornwall Council Planning application PA20/06587 Stable Cottage, Rock, next to ‘The Terrace’ has planning permission in for demolition and replacement with a massive, high modern property.
It is one of the remaining properties of Rock, and was the stable and grooms quarters of ‘The Terrace’ which was built in 1880 by the most celebrated Cornish architect of Victorian times, Silvanus Trevail. This old postcard from the early 1900s shows the cottage in the centre of the photo.
This is an important part of the ‘street scene’ of Rock, and shouldn’t be lost for ever. Please take the trouble to have a look at the planning application on Cornwall Council Planning.”
https://www.trefresafarm.com/my-booking
Langarth Garden Village, West Carclaze Garden Village, Hayle Harbour, Pydar Street, Nansledan, Halgavor Moor and Launceston:
www.cornwalllive.com/news/local-news/seven-sites-cornwall-almost-12000-4463206
www.langarth.co.uk/?fbclid=IwAR1GTzrEEhccXtYOCjRDTetkTLZeg741Z5Xef0SeThnp7jzcokMQdGmH81w
A comment from Kevin Bennetts about Langarth:
“If those at Kremlin Kernow (Cornwall Council) cannot afford to keep public toilets open, how in heaven’s name do they think they are capable of becoming speculative developers in their own right?!
In its simplest form to any average council taxpayer, the question must be: Behind the smoke and mirrors and financial chicanery, if the position is as sound as is claimed, why can they not afford to keep public toilets open?
That is before we even touch on the business acumen displayed in the purchase of Langarth:
Any plan to build proper old style council houses must stamp on the activities of the greedy corporate speculative developers who have done so much to create the present crisis, due to land banking artificially forcing the price of housing up.
A Prime example locally being Langarth, where Inox allegedly paid £100k/acre, then held the congenitally incompetent Cornwall Council to ransom until it paid £360k/acre for land that it could have actually bought for £260k/acre less, were it more financially astute (these figures can be verified by the land registry, to confirm beyond reasonable doubt).
Every politician stood idly by, letting this outrage on the public purse occur.
Some even cheered it on.
Then to add insult to already gross injury, a bitchy insult by the Kremlin arch apologist, Councillor Mike Eathorn Gibbons, suggests that Ken Rickard, a man of the utmost integrity (who spent a significant part of his working life conducting internal audits involving what was then Cornwall’s biggest most successful company) ‘’does not understand the figures’’, or presumably the fatuous claim that all is fine and dandy in cloud cuckoo land.
Councillor German a man who I had the utmost respect for originally, has obviously been absorbed into the Kremlin machine where he is, in reality, now of no further use to Cornish people.
From my own perspective the man who has reneged on a promise to look into the Penhale scheme and ‘’get back to me’’ has lost my trust and belief in him as a sound Cornishman, further compounding my disrespect for Cornwall Council in the process.”
Bodmin:
Cornwall Council are ignoring the Asset of Community Value (ACV) placed on the Dragon Leisure Centre.
The community of Bodmin do not wish to lose any part of the leisure centre, e.g. the football pitch, lower car park or the lower sports field...
Below are e'mails to/from WainHomes re Halgavor Moor Proposed Development:
From: Jack Stevenson jackstevo@icloud.com
Sent: 09 September 2020
To: halgavor@wainhomes.net
Subject: Halgavor - Public Consulation Importance: High
Dear Sir/Madam
I have already requested a paper copy of this Consultation, but not had any response. Please forward asap.
It appears your proposed entrance will be through the Dragon Leisure Centre lower car park (taking away 30 badly needed car parking spaces) and the lower Sports Field.
Are you aware there is an Asset of Community Value (ASV) on the whole of the Leisure Centre?
Kind Regards
Jack Stevenson
----------------------------------
Dear Mr. Stevenson
Sorry for the delayed response, I am the only one able to access the email address currently and I have been out of the office until today.
Is there anything in particular you would like me to send you from the website? It can be difficult trying to print web pages but I will have specific sections available to send to you.
We are aware that there will be a loss of parking spaces in this immediate area, however the proposal will be to provide new, additional parking the other side of the leisure centre, so that there won't be a loss.
Originally our intention was to bring the access in from further down Lostwithiel Rd, however the Council want it to be in the proposed location so that the other parcel of land to the east better connects.
Kind regards Jamie
Halgavor (Wainhomes South West)https://www.wainhomes.net/
Rame:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-rame-head/
JUDICIAL REVIEW OF CORNWALL COUNCIL'S APPROVAL OF A PLANNING APPLICATION CLOSE TO RAME HEAD
An update for those who have contributed to Rame Protection Group crowdfunding campaign to finance a Judicial Review of Cornwall Council's approval of a planning application close to Rame Head; the initial target of £7500 was achieved within 24 hours and nearly £10000 of the £19500 target has now been raised. Reaching this initial target has enabled a pre-action protocol letter to be sent by solicitors to Cornwall Council and will finance further initial stages too. For those of you who don't yet know about this, or haven't pledged but wish to, a link to the site for information and to pledge.
Long Rock:
154 dwellings at TR20 8JQ
See PA19/02670 on Cornwall council site
Saint Ives:
“I just posted something about the destruction of St Ives by corporate interests in Real love St Ives and got nothing but insults and patronising remarks. Apparent!y they prefer money to preserving the soul of the place. I know that St Ives is only one of many beautiful places in Cornwall, but I have family roots in the place and feel disappointment that the competitively local population appear not to care about its preservation. I have now been deleted for the group, they don't really love St Ives or even the rest of Cornwall.”
Falmouth:
An Utter Outrage! This stinks of Spin and Ulterior Motives!
For Months now Falmouth residents have been denied access to the vital outdoor space of the Princess Pavilions, shut behind chains and padlocks but the sickness had set in well before Corona Virus ever sneezed onto the scene.
I would hazard to say that most if not all restaurnnteers and venue operators in Cornwall and further afield would give their right arm to have a site like the Princess Pavilion with its stunning backdrop, architecture, gardens, heritage, amenities, indoor/outdoor food & beverage offerings, kids play area, location and in town parking. Yet you always get the feeling that all these highly prized assets in any normal business are a weight dragging the operators down and not prizes to be held aloft!
This was of course the case before Corona ever darkened our doors and London based GLL, also know as Better, had been cheapening up the Pavilions since they took over in 2017. The entire staff were changed and the new staff changed multiple times meaning what was a customer friendly and from the customers, my viewpoint, a highly efficient and well run bar & restaurant where people remembered your face if not your name, to a badly run bar & restaurant where no one seems to remember you and the service whilst not horrific wasn’t a patch on what it was.
Now onto the food and drinks themselves, whilst you don’t mind waiting for good food at a good price, which the Pavilions did prior to Better, what we ended up with was something more akin to a Wetherspoons with frozen burgers and chicken nuggets probably bought by the Better group from the ACME company and driven all over the U.K. before ending up on our plates.
Why wasn’t it a celebration of Cornish food and drinks? Which would of drawn people to the Pavilions instead of turning them away and been Better lol for the environment. It’s not rocket science, everyone is doing it in Cornwall!
The Pavilions are in a tourist hotspot, the location, the views, the scenery, the gardens are off the chart yet their business model appeared to be an inner city Wetherspoons!?!
Gyllyngvase beach cafe is a stones throw from the Pavilions, if you don’t have the imagination or business sense to make the Pavilions work all you needed to do was go on a 5 minute walk to see what was working around you. Even Better lol than that, taking into account the draw of the historic building and grounds, take a leaf out of the National Trusts book. The National Trust makes sites with far less star appeal than this work for them and the ones with the appeal of the Princess Pavilions are jewels in their crown, drawing visitors from every corner of the U.K. and further afield!
Now onto the Virus!
Better lol shut the Pavilions doors sooo fast the bang could be heard around Falmouth and most people probably idly wondered, like myself, wouldn’t it of been nice to walk through the gardens when we were in lockdown, to be able to sit outside and breath fresh air as I’m sure many of the surrounding families felt. But not only did they shut the gates and doors with a sonic boom but they have stayed more tightly shut than Fort Knox.....you begin to wonder why when so many businesses have said they had to shut at the last minute and reopened in whatever fashion they could as soon as they could. At the time of writing this post the doors and gates of the Pavilions are still shut even as The Goverments Eat Out to Help Out has come and gone.
I could only conclude that the financial situation of the Princess Pavilions is so good they haven’t needed to open....yet in the Falmouth Packets article on page 3 Better lol have stated they cannot afford to carry on....I am confused. They would of had a captive paying audience if they had at least made an attempt at serving the local community.
But let’s think further about the Pavilions.
Large Automatic opening double doors, circular routes inside and out with extra wide walk ways and undercover external seating and walk ways, large long bar, large indoor eating area with large entry and exit points and a lots of park benches spaced widely apart outside where food and drink were already served. I think we have to thank fire regulations and the disabled people of Falmouth for all these large access points and walkways plus our far more visionary Victorian ancestors but the point is other venues have made the Corona handicaps work for them with far far less, just not Better lol.
And let’s not forget the Band Stand itself! How many of Falmouth’s creative community could of used a Covered Band Stand with lots of space and open air seating all around it?!? The Minack theatre has been one of the few theatres able to reopen for these very same reasons providing employment and entertainment.
Better lol haven’t just done the Princess Pavilions a diss service they’ve done the people people of Falmouth and Cornwall a diss service!
The Princess Pavilions could of been a beacon of hope in times of darkness, working with and for the community bringing us together, socially distanced of course, helping young families with caged up kids and elderly people in need of fresh air and community alike.
Instead it’s feels like one more thing dragging us down, depressing us like another boarded up shop on the high street. A historic building waiting to be demolished.
I’ve probably added far too many lol’s to Better’s name and too many !’s to this post but a blind man could see what’s being spun here even if it’s in the background and quietly over many months. Better is most likely running the Pavilions into the ground to justify making the people of Falmouth and Cornwall swallow something unpalatable.
It will probably be a few torturous months to beat us all down and then an announcement will be made that GLL/Better have found a way to save the Princess Pavilion....Hurrah.....but there will be a But and it will probably include houses, holiday cottages, selling off land or some other dodgy garbage we don’t need anymore of in Cornwall to cover up the socially criminal and financial mismanagement’s of one of Falmouth’s greatest assets!
If GLL don’t have the vision from London to see what Falmouth’s Princess Pavilion needs or the ability to run it profitably for the people of Falmouth, then Cornwall Council has all the grounds it’s needs to cancel their contract with GLL on the grounds of incompetence and find an operator that can bring the Princess Pavilion back from the purgatory GLL purposeful, in my opinion, put our Pavilions in!
After so many of you have shared and commented I’ve started a Petion to get the Pavilion gardens opened for us. Step 1 �
www.thepetitionsite.com/en-gb/528/564/644/set-the-pavilion-gardens-free-for-the-people-of-falmouth/
Cornwall’s star MP... but is he any good for the Cornish?
https://westcountrybylines.co.uk/useless-eustice-no-hes-much-worse-then-that/