Warning! Cornwall councillors’ email correspondence below:
“He’s just throwing us under the bus.” said one.
“He’s supposed to be in charge. The useless tosser. I always thought he was a shit, but I never realised just how much of a shit until now.”
They really are turning on each other in the Kremlin Kernow corridors. Some Council officials were horrified by what the Dwelly emails reveal.
In a separate email to councillor Dulcie Tudor, Mr Dwelly said: “There’s no doubt mistakes have been made. Lessons need to be learnt all round….I was told by the team that they were confident of a positive vote after the technical briefing. I was also told that it would be counterproductive to have Phil, Louise (Wood, service director for planning) or me propose or lean on committee. Perhaps that was a mistake….I expect nothing will now happen on Pydar during the last period of this council. After the elections a new approach will no doubt get under way.”
In another email to Truro councillor David Harris, Mr Dwelly warns that the decision could cost Truro £7.5 million in immediate local investment: “To explain the £7.5 million: that is the total cost of two town deal projects located at Pydar, the Hive and Truro Community Hub. These two are both at risk without a site with planning. The amount of direct CC funding earmarked towards those two is £2m. The amount from Town Deal itself is £2.75m.
Credit Graham Smith - Cornwall Reports.
This prompted the following letter from a concerned resident:
Dear Mr Mansell
I trust you are well.
To say that my ‘’flabber was ghasted’’ today would not be an understatement, having read an item by Graham Smith on the excellent Cornwall Reports newsfeed, which seems to be Cornwall’s sole source of adult journalism in the bleak landscape we are currently condemned to inhabit, under the Covid lockdown regime.
My communication with our benighted council has been non existent in recent months given my disgust with what seems to have been going on over time and the fact that I have far better things to do than be ignored and sidelined by an organisation that gives every impression of being totally out of control.
However!
What I read today has compelled me to legitimately enquire what on earth is really going on at Cornwall Council?
Let’s begin with the farcical ‘’closure’’ of the Langarth deal and Councillor Egerton’s unseemly hasty exit, stage left, when he bailed out on what appears to be a point of principle, because he would appear to have been treated in a manner remarkably similar in relation to the Cormac-gate issue to what I have become used to over time.
Having been assured that Langarth was a bargain and there would be an immediate start to the so called Northern Access Road by a group of people in hard hats led by Councillor Andrew Michell, it almost immediately became evident (thanks again to Cornwall Reports) that there was a covenant on a strip of access land that dictated work had to cease forthwith, until the covenant was lifted by purchasing the land in question at an exorbitant price.
Surely the conveyancing process should have highlighted this problem before completion of the purchase of the main area of land, which should have then been delayed until the matter was resolved.
The Langarth issue aside the Pydar Street “car crash” outcome could be said to be bad enough in isolation, but it hints at the true extent of the internal conflicts within Lys Kernow that appear to have persuaded an official to refer to a portfolio holder as a ‘’tosser and a shit’’.
Personally, the terminology does not phase me because I would probably use stronger terms (the prime reason why I have never sought election), but the root cause of this cringe inducing conflict demands an honest explanation as to what is really going on under the surface.
My gut instinct tells me that the lack of competence, respect and ability to exert control over officers by a weak and divided cabinet is doing immense harm to Cornwall, which I refuse to accept without comment.
This will be copied to those I deem relevant and shared on social media for information purposes in the interest of transparency.
Yours very sincerely,
Kevin Bennetts
What the latest saga was over:
www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/cornwall-councils-plans-new-town-4887669
The Covid jackpot for holiday home owners:
https://cornishstuff.com/2021/02/26/133m-super-jackpot-scandal-of-a-cornish-holiday/
Another dubious council affair threatens popular race track at St. Day:
www.change.org/p/cornwall-council-save-united-downs-raceway
Planning department for lorries full of concrete flowing all over the Duchy? Cornwall doesn’t actually have any green belts; would that help anyway under the current green to golden grey planning shambles?
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/new-homes-greenfield-land-care-report-b1807032.html
Separately: Meet Max The Mushroom
Just imagine the immense responsibility, the sheer hard work and the total dedication necessary, to reinvent Cornwall, creating a parallel universe, a figment bowl of deluded imaginations; honey spot or tar pit? How lucky are we, to have such illuminating characters as The Flying Dutchman, Clan Tricky Dicky, Tacky T and Max Bellend sharing our cave ...
According to Max Bellend of Visit Cornwall — the G7 Summit is a blessing; for it will address a deep concern of his, a concern, that whilst visitors from England, Ireland and Wales are more than aware of what Cornwall has to offer — Johnny Foreigner is apparently, not yet, sufficiently well informed and versed?
Anyone remember the last Greedfest and one of the most disgraceful of a number of ‘Cornwall Live’ reports concerning the town?
No apologies ever made, no admissions of fault then or the litany of failings historic, for such a thinly veiled extension, of what is, altogether — The Stein Mine and a disaster area entirely. Calling it anything other, is clearly a blatant lie. Every time Tacky T wants her secret spot given a little more exposure, she just crooks her little finger at Maximum — who keenly obliges. One day her fingers are going to slip thru the paper I’m bleddy sure!
‘Why do people come to Cornwall?’
With the demise of the bucket and spade brigade visiting the county purely to spend time on our beaches, this expert panel will be exploring the rise in guests visiting the coast path, enjoy Cornish food and drink and indulge in the rich culture and education that Cornwall has to offer. Jill Stein will be joined by Tim Smit and Visit Cornwall’s chief executive Max Bellend, plus a very special guest to discuss.
(Extract from The Padstow Christmas Greedfest Guide as shown)
One was bent over a hot plate, one was bent over a potting shed bench and the other, well he was slung over a deckchair — like a towel.
I was always told that self praise was no kind of recommendation — ‘expert panel’ ... I’ve seen wooden fences of better construct and bearing! An immoral coterie most certainly, quite who elevated these charlatans as being ‘experts’ is beyond me. Anyone want to cast their memories back and consider how these characters washed up here for a moment perhaps?
What kind of value are we actually getting for our money, might we even begin to wonder? Pressure is growing on Cornwall Council, to answer such questions, about its grip on Cornwall Development Company, a company which has freely admitted to spending hundreds of thousands of pounds in over sea trips …
Never mind the utterly farcical employ recently, of an agency (at great expense) — who after much thought, consideration, brainstorming and pay, came up with the quite incredible idea, that the best way to promote Cornwall, was with lashings of Cakey Tea, Pasties and Poldark! (Genius)
When visiting the website of Visit Cornwall, I didn’t feel all together keen on the idea of taking up Maximum’s invite — to meet him around the back of his park lodge for a chat. He looks entirely shifty, for all his brass neck and pin badge.
Tourist Information ... now there’s a scheme and a half - most would call them booking offices. Newquay pop up urinals spring to mind!
Does a peninsula, one which ultimately leads to Lands End, really need more signposts? More leaflets, more maps and more kerb litter? Thousands upon thousands of tonnes of glossy paper? Do we really need to promote this show, quite so heavily and in such a criminally insane, environmentally destructive, socially costly manner? Visit Cornwall —
Do we really need our panel of ‘experts’ for the many, many thousands they cost us — when we have an already, all too well beaten path?
So well beaten in fact, it’s falling into the sea — the journey there and back now festooned with dog poo in bags and disposable barbecues, detritus still not yet cleared up from last summer ‘lockdown’ ...
According to Cornwall Council, whatever problems exist in Cornwall — they are happening because, ‘we’ are not getting enough money from central government or they, the Council are powerless to remedy/deal with them.
Might I ask Cornwall Council to do one thing, just one thing, to help remedy/deal with a host of problems? Would you please, please get Max Bellend a one way ticket to somewhere really, really hot? Hayle with a sun bed, Hell stoking a furnace — I don’t care, he’s just a cost that Cornwall can’t and should never have so much as once been expected, to afford, or to bear! How can such a man ever be paid so much? What kind of budget ...
How does the Cornwall Development Company ever subsidise and bail out Big Bubbles for thousands and expect/demand such deals are made secret? Who controls the flow of the faucet? Who directs the herd? Cornwall Council needs to control itself!
Finally, all this expensive Cornish concrete soup prompted one Truronian to lament the passing of one Cornwall everybody seemed to love and enjoy, into a Cornish carcass left to rot for developer vultures and their mercenaries at Cornwall Council to pick apart:
“Reading these comments, it feels to me as if what many people are trying to articulate is their sense of anger and sadness over what has been lost - the sense of real, integrated communities, the steady, unruffled aspect to Cornish life before the masses came, the disappearance of what used to be 'Cornish Society', the space, quiet and sense of remoteness, the cohesion of traditional architecture, the sense of stability. Even the landscapes lose their beauty when over-run and crowded out and the sense of Cornwall as being truly rural is fading fast.
Now we are subjected to a physical, economic and cultural degradation caused by the continual interference by external (money-grabbing) interests, the 'over-selling' of Cornwall and the tourist industry, mass urbanisation and a Council that does not appear to understand, or care about, Cornwall. I think this article in the Telegraph sums a lot up:”
Cornwall is Britain's most overrated holiday destination
Four million people visit Cornwall every year, seduced by wild coasts, gorgeous beaches and the chic seaside lifestyle – or so they think (Chris Moss, 25 February 2021)
During this week of tentative, twitchy optimism among British travellers – and across the domestic tourism sector – it might seem churlish, even sadistic, to throw tepid scrumpy on anyone’s holiday plans but, after careful consideration, I think it’s time someone spoke the truth about the Cornwall Conspiracy.
The clichés that froth around this extremity of southwest England like the bubbling Atlantic are well known. The cool, but not overly competitive, surf scene. The chic seaside retreats. The most des second residences in the UK. Add to this the promotional campaign that Poldark gifted to Visit Cornwall in 1975-7 and again from 2015-19 and the endless recycling of Cornwall-related fabulations in the travel media and it’s not surprising that, come spring every year, sports cars and SUVs, spilling-over people-carriers, and modish campervans (SUP and boogie boards strapped securely on top) head for Land’s End – or, as I prefer to call it, the Appendix, the Protuberance, the Last Resort.
I’ll be honest, I’ve never got Cornwall – and I know why. I didn’t holiday there as a kid and so have no false memories of my hairy-chested dad eating cockles raw from a rockpool or my dirtily-tanned mum posing under the stunted palms. In the Seventies and Eighties, northerners like me didn’t go to the South West. Most British-built cars couldn’t have made the trip in one piece.
Two parents and four kids in a Hillman Imp; it just wouldn’t wash, even if the two older lads rattled around the fire-hazard caravan we were towing. A few richer folk, or duped honeymooners, went to Newquay or Bude back then; now they’d do Cancun or Dubai.
But there are other reasons. Cornwall is miles from almost anywhere. Getting there is always a tedious and tiresome schlep. When I lived in London, and some work thing meant I had to go to Redruth, I remember being struck by the inordinate distance – not from the capital, but from Exeter. You are basically half way there when the M5 runs out and you’re siphoned on to the cramped A38 or rammed A30.
“Take the train!” you cry, knowingly. But I know, and everyone knows, that the glorious GWR, after dipping its toe delightfully in the waters near Torbay and performing a silky scything motion around Dartmoor, loses all hope on crossing the Tamar. The line goes inland; all the things for which Cornwall is supposedly famed are lost from view. Only at Chynadour, a few minutes before the dead end at Penzance, do you glimpse the sea. Then it’s all over.
A sort of chic seaside lifestyle is regarded as one of the tricks Cornwall keeps up its sleeve – that, despite its remoteness and mythic strangeness, the peninsula can deliver all the hedonic needs required by even the most demanding exiles from the leafier parts of SW London or deep-pocketed Guildford.
Putting aside Ginsters and the simple fact that you can get a digestible pasty from Thurso to Derry and from the Isle of Man to Dover, I suppose the Cornish “USP” is fish. Indeed, Cornwall has the same coast as the rest of us, and, yes, there are some satisfactorily flavoursome flounders and sea creatures to be hooked thereabouts. But Padstow has turned even this into a factory experience. A meal at the Stein complex has all the romance of a spree at Ikea. It’s the same with Finisterre and Seasalt. Everything seems doomed to become a brand. The Cornishness becomes mere corn.
It’s obvious why this trend has developed. Tourism can be a heinous business and Cornwall, like all destinations that become unsustainably popular, is a victim of its own propaganda (number crunchers might deem this “success”). The very things people come to the county to experience – remoteness, wildness, peace and quiet, nature, beaches – are made insufferable or impossible due to the fact that 3,999,999 other people are trying to do the same.
At high tide, the beaches look like refugee camps full of weirdly well-dressed people clinging to the cliffsides in the hope their boutique chihuadoodles and blonde offspring, garbed in anti-solar surf suits, aren’t washed away by the icy waters. And it is quite chilly, isn’t it, most of the time.
For if the currents do occasionally enjoy some seepage from the cooling tropical systems, you can bank reliably on the north winds – the residual air of the chilling Pembrokeshire Dangler that drifts downwards – to smarten your pinking skin and tickle your goosebumps.
But the fundamental problem with Cornwall is its geography. Sure, the cliffs are almost as impressive as those of Southwest Wales and the English Northeast. True, the surf is almost as lively as at Croyde in Devon. Accepted, the beaches are sand-coloured and the farmland is farm-coloured. But the immutable fact remains that Cornwall is a triangle and that particular polygon cannot but taper ever thinner towards its wilting end.
All those vehicles put-putting in one direction every weekend to get as far west as possible is pure madness. This applies equally to tourists, residents and second-homers. There’s not enough space for all of them. Polperro on a holiday weekend has all the piratical charm of Torremolinos.
Quaint Fowey is ringed by redbrick estates trying to cram in all the outsiders, roundly depreciated by the native-born as emmets. As for those who have invested their pensions in sea-view terraces and faux villas, and who deign to drop in via the toytown airport or at the wheel of their Waitrose-stuffed Cayennes and Lexuses, their very existence mocks the whole fiction of Cornwall as folksy, rootsy, localist, yokelly and natural.
Every visit involves 700 miles-plus of lavish carbon emissions; again, I insist, there’s no room in the isosceles triangle for their empty houses.
As much as I, like you, am aching for a holiday and some merry socialising post-lockdown, when it comes to British wild spaces, I will be seeking my light and air, sea and sunshine far from the madding crowds of the oversold and unthinkingly thronged likes of Cornwall.
According to the news – which is to say, the PR firms representing hotels and tourist boards – we’ve all gone loopy this week, booking hols, bagging rooms, plotting escapes, securing our precious two weeks in June or July. If this is true, and if you’ve not joined the sheepish masses who will be herded down the motorway to eat one of Rick’s pricey cods or stand where Demelza’s see-through blouse once fluttered winningly, think carefully before emptying your pandemic piggy bank.
Check out Filey, Morecambe, Carmarthenshire, the Gower and Llyn peninsulas, most of Scotland, East Anglia, Shetland, even north Devon, three hours short of where everyone else is heading. All these offer variations on the standard themes of Cornwall, without the hype or the harrying, the queues or the gushing and dubious reviews – and you can always get a Ginsters.