After more than 30 years in the job of planning, at Restormel District Council then Cornwall Council, you’d think Director of Strategy, Phil Mason, might’ve improved his delivery, changed his ways, strategy and plans for Cornwall; raised his game perhaps?
Well the only things that have been raised in all that time are:
1- his salary (now over £200,000 incl. expenses and bonuses).
2- the monstrous mismanagement losses at Cornwall council, based on poor planning, poor decision making, rash borrowing, poor delivery and huge waste.
Let’s not forget that quite apart from the stalled redevelopment at Truro’s Pydar Street (costing both local and national taxpayers tens of millions), the saga of the new town at Langarth Farm (Chiverton Cross) rolls on.
But given its initial major shortcomings, involving massive borrowing (£600m) on the eve of the inflation spike (despite many warnings, all ignored) and corruption:- remember the saga of “consultant” John Betty showing up from Bristol as a part-time council employee, then disappearing at the same time as £2million vanishes unexplained by council bosses, and after the council inexplicably paid 100x more for a bit of land next to Threemilestone? That’s right, Kalamity Kate Kennally (Council CEO) and Phil Mason paid, on our behalf, £36m for land worth £360,000; land that was held by a shady “developper and land agent” INOX developments, headed by Ian Saltmarsh… who happened to be a friend of John Betty’s… you couldn’t make it up. And this isn’t the 1950s. The same company who’s “henchmen” including one Marcel Venn, was caught bullying elderly residents from their homes on said land, so as to secure all parcels necessary for Phil Mason’s vanity project: the Langarth Garden Village… hardly a garden and hardly a village, when you’re building 4,000 houses (initially), initially. A bit of a misnomer, right there.
But that’s Phil Mason and Kate Kennally, strategy and CEO respectively, for local residents and taxpayers, a double misnomer, given one couldn’t plan a pissup in a brewery whilst the other landed the top job at Cornwall council after jumping the sinking London Barnet council ship as it approached bankruptcy; she was then CFO, i.e. in charge of finances!
So whilst council taxes rise by inflation-busting figures, for most of the past 15 years, and are among the highest and fastest-growing in the land, it’s good to know our planning affairs are in safe hands. And given council taxes are not enough to fund these officers’ loony plans, the council engages yearly in asset stripping the Duchy, selling everything and anything it can, mainly at cut-down rates to speculative national developers, with promises of easy planning permission for more mass sub-quality housing, in the process clogging our roads, schools, surgeries, water/sewerage works, air and out only hospital, Treliske. Try getting planning for a small extension on garden shed, if your name isn’t Persimmon, Wain, Taylor Wimpey, Kier or Linden…
So we have 3x the average national rate of development whilst our only hospital has to care for an additional 40-50% of residents.
So next time you pay your council tax or need an appointment at your local surgery, spare a thought for Cornwall’s hapless Phil and Kate, our very own Dumb and Dumber, planning their next white elephant vanity project with your cash.
…and don’t get us started on the farcical FREE stadium for Cornwall, which Pirates rugby players and many locals actually believed Cornwall council wanted and could deliver. That was 12 years ago. The (financial) fog still obscures that grand plan… thanks Phil… Bad planning or just more lies and deception?
For an update on some of these questionable and dubious - at best - practices and plans, please see these stories on Cornwall Reports (links below), one of a very small number of good, unbiased, well-researched, independent and reliable sources, which we highly recommend.
https://cornwallreports.co.uk/truro-new-towns-3800-homes-will-not-be-heated-from-united-downs/