A quick round of news in the Developers' paradise: Cornwall City, where we can see how our inept planners and council officers, watched by an army of hapless and hopeless councillors, spend our millions, not on services for our kids or elderly, not to support chronic meltdown at Treliske or at our (GP & dental) surgeries, not on our schools, towns, coasts or farms, but on this ongoing fiasco, all under the watchful eye of Cornwall Council CEO, Kate Kennally (pictured):
(Thanking Cornwall reports for its stories below - don't need to add a lot; what a mess at the Kremlin Kernow!)
The party’s over: County Hall has blown £100 million from reserves in only one year and is now £1.4 billion in debt
By Julia Penhaligon
The total value of Cornwall Council’s cash reserves has shrunk by more than £100 million in the past 12 months. On 1st January this year, the council was £1.4 billion in debt. The “operational limit” for increasing this is £1.8 billion. Slowly but surely, the council has been edging towards bankruptcy.
Much of the money exiting the council’s accounts has been directed towards its own property development company, Treveth, which currently owes taxpayers £74.4 million in loans. The closing balance on all of County Hall’s reserve accounts, including the general reserve, on 1st April 2024 was £332 million. The total value on 31st March 2025 will be only £231 million, according to the new finance chief Alice Gunn.
Nearly all areas of County Hall activity are overspending against their set budgets. One of the most damaging aspects of the council’s activity appears to have been its enthusiasm to gamble on interest rates. Cornwall Council has a basket of Lender Option Borrower Option (LOBO) loans which are enormously risky and nearly always more expensive than borrowing from central government.
Ms Gunn says: “It should be noted that the council currently holds 16% (£231.7m) of its long-term debt in LOBOs. As a council, we previously wrote to all these banks to explore the option to repay but the costs of the premiums to exit, did not make this a viable option. We will continue to review this on an annual basis.”
But with total external borrowing currently £1,403.8m Cornwall Council’s years in the casino appear to have run out of chips. Councillors are becoming increasing concerned about the “headroom budget” – an all-purpose slush fund which allows officials to spend without supervision.
Last year’s outing to Leeds to search for £10.6 billion appears now to have been even more delusional than it did in May. In 2021 the current cabinet resources portfolio holder, councillor David Harris, complained there was “no ******* money” to do things. But officials did things anyway and nobody stopped them.
Indeed, only last year the cabinet gave officials an extra £10 million for the £230 million Pydar hole-in-the-ground in Truro. They now realise they did not need the extra £10 million because the original vision will never be built.
In office, but not in power, and with nearly all of their councillors complaining of “four wasted years,” Cornwall’s Conservatives head into the election campaign with their morale in tatters.
We want to build on 26,000 acres but we’re not telling you where, say planners
By Rashleigh MacFarlane
Planners want to keep secret the locations where landowners have volunteered to build houses on more than 12,000 acres in Cornwall. A County Hall “call for sites” has generated 683 responses from landowners now looking to cash-in on housing development.
A further 228 responses were received for commercial schemes. The total acreage offered by landowners to planners is now more than 26,000. But town and parish councils, and local campaigners worried that the green fields surroundings their villages are about to disappear, have been told that the locations of these sites is “commercially confidential.”
Cornwall Council’s current position is that it is not obliged to disclose the locations until and unless a formal planning application is submitted. The refusal to publicise the sites is intended to inhibit objections.
The council’s desire for secrecy means that there could be no wider debate about infrastructure or the need for local services until developers have invested time and money drawing up their individual proposals. “The public interest in maintaining the exemptions outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information,” says the council. “Disclosure could prejudice the commercial interests of the Council and third parties.”
Cornwall Reports is aware that one of the major landowners contemplating residential developments is the Diocese of Truro. The Church of England is one of Cornwall’s largest landowners and is keen to identify “rural exception sites” which might be suitable for “affordable” housing but which would not normally qualify for planning permission. These sites are typically on the outskirts of villages.
The report adds: “Cornwall’s target is now the provision of 4,421 homes per year, representing a significant 68% increase on the previous target. “Cornwall has extant planning permissions to deliver over 26,000 homes; of which only approximately 10% are delivered each year; plus other existing allocations and infill sites appropriate for housing could deliver a further 9,000 homes.
“An analysis of the permitted and allocated housing sites indicates that there are sites for nearly 10,000 homes that have stalled or are likely to require support to enable their delivery.” The report reveals there are currently 76 permitted sites, capable of providing 5,900 homes, which are flagged as “red” and which are stalled so badly that there is no realistic prospect of them completing.
Brownfield sites? Cornwall's recent history is of much talk, but little action
The fact that these sites have planning permission, however, has ensured the landowners have seen a significant uplift in values simply by watching the grass grow. A report titled “Good Housing Growth Plan 2025/26” is due to come before councillors next week. The council does not seem to have produced any report titled “Bad Housing Growth Plan.”
Cornwall’s 2025 budget: you pays your money and you takes your choice
By Julia Penhaligon
There are signs of nerves within Cornwall Council’s ruling Conservative group that their “pay more get less” budget might struggle when councillors vote on it later this month. Despite increasing council tax by the maximum 4.99%, the Tories want to cut £49 million from frontline services while continuing to spend £1.9 billion on various capital projects.
This entails political choices which, at the moment, reflect the priorities of senior council officials. The budget means most people in Cornwall will have to pay an extra £50 per year while getting an £86-per-head reduction in services.
The Conservatives no longer have an overall majority in the council chamber – they have consequently lost more than a dozen committee places - and the budget will almost certainly be subject to some amendments from Opposition groups.
Cornwall Reports has heard rumours that some Conservative councillors are on the point of following former Tory Mike McLening in resigning from the party before the 1st May elections. There will be a vote on the budget at the full council meeting of 24th February. But Opposition councillors are so divided that they have not yet been able to present any coherent alternative.
There are signs, however, of a growing awareness that taxpayers’ money is not always spent wisely and that many of the assumptions underpinning County Hall policies are deeply flawed. Amendments aimed at reversing the deeply unpopular Tory plans to privatise car parks could command wide support.
The council could also scrap the “Public Service Obligation” subsidy to Eastern Airways, paid to maintain a year-round Gatwick-Newquay link. This environmentally-unfriendly tax, imposed on everyone in Cornwall largely to benefit second-home owners and holidaymakers, could be replaced by a “user-pays” levy.
A levy would upset the tourism lobby but the majority of Cornwall’s taxpayers, who rarely use Newquay Airport, would see a significant saving.
Much of the £1 million a week in interest charges necessary to finance the council’s eye-watering debt stems from capital projects initiated by the Liberal Democrat-Independent administration more than 10 years ago. Officials now want to borrow - they called it "prudential borrowing" - a staggering £982 million by 2030. In addition the strategy is to find cash for capital spending from capital receipts - usually the sale of land, buildings or other public assets.
Last month officials admitted they did not know who was paying the wages for the handful of staff at Newquay spaceport. A £510,000 taxpayer-bailout approved by the Conservatives after Richard Branson’s rocket crash in 2023 is due to expire in April.
The capital budget also includes a £60 million “headroom” element to allow officers to spend what they like without political authority. Abolition of this slush fund would force capital project managers to live within their means.
It would also return about £3 million in interest charges to the revenue account – more than enough to save many of the child protection services currently under threat. The council’s cabinet meets tomorrow (Wednesday) to consider the budget.
Marriott hotel for Newquay Airport? Yeah, right
By Peter Tremayne
The start of the official “purdah” period today (Friday) for the Cornwall Council elections brought the usual flurry of last-minute “feel good” press releases last night. The period of “heightened political sensitivity” in theory now outlaws nonsense announcements such as that reproduced below.
The official taxpayer-funded press release declares, in celebratory tones, that a hotel is to be built at Newquay Airport.
It does not say when. Or who will pay for it. Or if anyone would ever actually use it. The press release fails to mention that the airport attracts so few aircraft that the need for passengers to stay overnight has never previously been an issue. The opinions of rival hoteliers close to the airport is not recorded. The status of the recent £50,000 “Land Use Blueprint” does not warrant a mention.
Crucially, it does mention that the hotel proposal is “subject to finalising all legal agreements over the next few weeks.” Aha, that old chestnut. So in a few weeks, we assume, the council’s lawyers and finance chiefs will suddenly discover that simply handing over public land to private property developers is nearly always poor value and usually illegal.
As Cornwall Reports has previously noted, the council had been in talks with Fairbairn Capital – a private equity firm - about bringing the first Marriott hotel in Cornwall to the airport in late 2022 after the local authority’s agents Vickery Holman marketed a 1.55-hectare site at the Aerohub Business Park, adjacent to the airport, for use as a hotel with planning permission attached.
A formal offer was made to the council in December 2022, with heads of terms agreed the following February.
But machinations by the council to find a financial partner to run the airport started later that year and those involved in the Marriott project say it was then that the council went silent on its own deal.
Nevertheless, to help end the week and start Friday morning with a good chuckle, this is how Cornwall Council spent your money yesterday:
“Cornwall Council has reached an agreement to bring a ‘Courtyard by Marriott’ Hotel to Cornwall Airport Newquay.
The deal will see up to £30m of direct investment in the development, a well as the creation of 30 full-time equivalent jobs.
The agreement brings a world-renowned hotel, leisure and business complex that will complement the outstanding hotel and accommodation provided in the wider Newquay are, and which will serve the airport, Newquay and all of Cornwall. The council has been seeking private sector interest on this land and this is the first of many more development proposals that the authority wants to bring forward.
Subject to finalising all legal agreements over the next few weeks, it is expected that a planning application will be made during the course of this year. Cllr David Harris, Cornwall Council’s Deputy Leader and portfolio holder for resources, said: "I am really pleased to be able to announce this agreement has been reached. "It is just one small step among the wider plans to make better use of the airport estate where we continue to discuss opportunities with our preferred partner moving forwards."
An officer's decision yesterday advocates a lease of the land for 150-room hotel. The report warns there is a risk that the prospective developer will fail to secure the necessary funding. Somehow that bit also missed the official press release.
“To save Truro’s Pydar area, we first had to destroy it”
By Rashleigh MacFarlane
Demolition work is due to resume at Truro’s Pydar area in the next few weeks, funded by £3.5 million from the extra £10 million approved by Cornwall Council’s Conservative cabinet 12 months ago. The sight of bulldozers, during the council election period, is intended to reassure voters that something is actually happening. For two years Pydar has been simply a large, dangerous hole in the ground.
A new planning application is being prepared but the man in charge has admitted it will be at least six years before the project is complete – and even that assumes that interest rates fall quickly enough to permit construction of the £230 million scheme to even start. The timing of the renewed demolition work is curious, so close to the Cornwall Council elections. The formal “purdah” period prohibiting politically-sensitive council activity during an election period starts formally on Friday (14th March.)
Tim Mulholland, managing director of the council-owned Treveth development company, said the two years of no activity had been very frustrating. Mr Mulholland told the BBC: "It's been very frustrating for everybody that we've had a two-year hiatus but we're back on.
"Part of the delay was due to existing tenancy agreements in the former retail units and the bowling alley, but those have now come to an end." He said interest rates were still too high for the loan the project needed, which "takes the scheme out of financial viability."
"We're not here to lose money," he added. "The build out programme should take about six years. "At the moment our workers are stripping the interior of the remaining buildings before the hazardous waste (asbestos) is removed. "Depending on environmental factors, we hope to see the bulldozers back here in April."
County Hall bosses have so far shied away from asking awkward questions about why the original plan for Treveth was designed apparently unaware of the 2017 Grenfell fire disaster. The fire was widely reported and led immediately to new regulations being introduced in Parliament, affecting all new buildings over six metres.
It is inconceivable that the Pydar plans could have been produced in ignorance of the need for improved designs. The new Building Safety Act completed its journey through Parliament in 2022. The council nevertheless approved planning permission – on the original, unsafe design - in 2023.
Welcome to the modern world: County Hall discovers what the government thinks of its ability to spend taxpayers’ money
By Julia Penhaligon
Cornwall has been ignored in the government’s award of £1.5 billion for “neighbourhoods.” The only South West council to receive a share of Whitehall’s latest cash hand-out is Torbay. Cornwall Council was among those to bid for the “Plan For Neighbourhoods” but was not among the 75 winners. County Hall officials claim they have a good track record of spending discretionary government grants but clearly Whitehall does not agree.
Among the examples which council chiefs claim as a success is the vastly over-budget-and-two-years-late Penzance Pixel, a “creative hub” still looking for its first tenant. A meeting of the council’s economy scrutiny committee yesterday (Tuesday) saw a rare outbreak of agreement between Penzance chairman councillor Tim Dwelly – a long-time champion of the Pixel – and the cabinet member for the economy, councillor Louis Gardner.
Councillor Gardner said: “It’s beholden on all of us to carry on lobbying this government. I am really upset that the government have announced the programme and there is not one single Cornish town on it and only one town in the South West (Torquay). “That does not bode well for Cornwall at all. Our MPs need to answer for that.”
The previous government handed out tens of millions of pounds in “Town Deal” funds as pre-election bribes – to little obvious effect. Truro is in danger of seeing its entire £23.6 million disappear in a forlorn attempt to build a lifting bridge. As the cabinet member for the economy, councillor Gardner has presided over the distribution of £132 million in Shared Prosperity Funds. Some of this has gone on painting street murals in his home division of Newquay.
In January the government demonstrated that it sees little point in using County Hall as a conduit for spending, opting to invest £30 million directly in the South Crofty tin mine project.
Cornwall Council budget day: the flogging will continue until morale improves
By Julia Penhaligon
The dismal lack of choice facing Cornwall’s voters on 1st May will be illustrated at Cornwall Council’s crucial budget-setting meeting later today. Faced with cutting £49 million from frontline services, the ruling Conservative administration nevertheless proposes transferring £13 million to reserves.
An initial amendment from the Liberal Democrat and Independent groups suggested reducing the frontline pain by £1.047 million - to be achieved by transferring a slightly smaller sum to reserves. This would help avoid some of the more unpopular cuts but continued to ignore the “elephant in the room” – the council’s staggering £1.9 billion capital spending programme, which requires interest payments to money-lenders of around £1 million per week.
The initial Lib Dem/Indy proposal aimed to protect child protection services, save the council’s “handyperson” DIY service and maintain seven-day operation of household waste tips and start work on a business case for safety improvements on the A30 at Plusha, Bodmin Moor.
The council’s new chief finance officer, Alice Gunn, did not support the idea because she wants the full £13 million transferred to reserves. Ms Gunn accepted, however, that such priorities are political choices for elected local politicians.
The Conservatives, shaken by public hostility towards their attack on household waste tips and the “handyperson” service, then suddenly discovered they can dodge these political bullets by using money from a government grant for Public Health funding.
Crucial frontline child protection roles would be rebranded as “consultants” and therefore paid from a different budget heading. The £250,000 for road designs at Plusha would also come from a different, existing budget. Because this proposal maintains the £13 million return to reserves, Ms Gunn says she supports it. The Tory budget therefore reduces the pain by £660,000. The Lib Dems/Indies then adjusted their own position into line with the Conservatives.
An alternative Magnificent Seven Point Manifesto:
Pydar - Mothball the £230 million regeneration of Truro’s Pydar area until economic circumstances improve. Offer the site to Truro community groups for low-cost, low-impact projects, such as allotments or car parking. This will not only bring about an immediate improvement in the local environment, it will reduce the current £3 million capital borrowing requirement, returning £150,000 to revenue – more than enough to save threatened child protection services and stop the proposed reduction in household waste centre opening days.
Camelford by-pass - Twelve months ago the council agreed to spend another £2.6 million preparing another “business case” for a Camelford by-pass. This was after the previous £6.5 million business case was rejected by the former Conservative government. The most recent estimate for the cost of the by-pass is £147 million - £59 million per mile. It was a meaningless election-year promise. The Camelford by-pass won’t happen, not least because the idea lacks the necessary support in Camelford. It is time to stop throwing money away.
Newquay Airport - End both the annual £4.8 million taxpayer subsidy for operating costs, and the council’s annual £470,000 Eastern Airways subsidy, and substitute a £10 per head passenger levy.
Are we surprised to see one of the few decent and long-standing councillors leave the council??
Top Councillor quits as one of Cornwall Council’s auditors, protesting at the poor quality of financial information
By Julia Penhaligon
Cornwall councillor Philip Desmonde has resigned as one of County Hall’s auditors, following some testy exchanges at a meeting on Friday when he complained about the quality of financial information presented by officials.
Councillor Desmonde, elected as a Conservative for the Pool and Tehidy division, and a former cabinet member, said vitally important documents had not been released until shortly before the meeting – making it impossible to read them all.
The council’s financial situation has gone seriously downhill over the past four years of Conservative stewardship, with debt now around £1.4 billion, about £1 million per week being paid to money-lenders and frontline services like child protection now facing damaging cuts.
The council’s attempts to balance the books are based on values and assumptions, with huge sums of money held in various accounts and frequently moved between those accounts, described in a large number of financial reports produced for the audit committee – which on Friday agreed to recommend that the council leader could sign off on the annual governance statement.
The main report contained five appendixes and cross-referenced to a number of other reports. One of these reports, the 57-page external auditor’s report from Grant Thornton, drew attention to problems with County Hall’s Special Educational Needs budget – warning officially that unless it is fixed quickly it has the potential to bankrupt the council.
Councillor Desmonde was also concerned about some figures used to describe movements in cash or value between the council and its various arms-length companies. These “adjustments” appeared designed to reschedule some debt, applying a degree of gloss to what would otherwise have been even more grim reading.
But councillor Desmonde said the reports were inconsistent and lacking detail. He said councillors must have the information necessary to ask questions. “Council officials are not gods,” he said. “They can make mistakes like everyone else.” The officials said they had done their best. After the meeting, councillor Desmonde wrote to colleagues to say he was resigning from the council’s 8-member audit committee.
Grant Thornton has also recommended improvements to the quality of information presented to the audit committee in future. Meanwhile a full council meeting on Tuesday might see more resignations from the Conservative group, which could struggle to force through its £49 million cuts budget.
The audit committee has only one more scheduled meeting, on 11th April, before 1st May elections look likely to bring about dramatic changes in the council’s political make-up. Councillor Desmonde was one of the first colleagues that council leader Linda Taylor turned to when she appointed her first cabinet in 2021, appointing him the portfolio holder for transport. He quickly established a reputation as a cabinet member who was not afraid to challenge, publicly, the judgement of County Hall officials.
Within months he complained that Tamar Bridge officials had deliberately excluded him from a key meeting about alternative funding streams. Mr Desmonde claimed that some officials were “arrogant” and had said things which were “untrue and a misrepresentation of the facts.” The officials denied his claims.
Dumped: Cornwall’s household waste centres to end 7-day opening
By Graham Smith
Most of Cornwall’s household waste tips are to be closed for two days a week as County Hall tries to save money. The idea is one of dozens coming before a crucial budget meeting today (Wednesday.)
The unpublicised move is likely to be extremely controversial as it will increase pressure on the household waste recycling centres’ already busy weekends. Cornwall Council is currently introducing a pre-booking system in order to manage demand.
The two-days-a-week closures would affect nine of the 14 centres and would save only £200,000 in the coming financial year – a tiny fraction of the £49 million cuts needed to balance the budget. The balancing act is all about political priorities. The £200,000 waste tip “saving” would not be necessary if the council had not squandered £600,000 on a “feel good” military parade in Falmouth two years ago.
Critics of the Conservative council claim that essential services are being sacrificed in order to protect multi-million pound “vanity” projects which seem doomed to fail, such as the £230 million Pydar regeneration scheme in Truro. Pydar remains nothing more than a huge hole in the ground despite years of “development” by expensive consultants.
The HWRC’s earmarked for a five-day week are: Bodmin, Bude, Connon Bridge, Helston, Newquay, Redruth, St Day, Tintagel, Truro
The following would remain open for seven days a week for another year, after which they face an uncertain future: Launceston, Saltash, St Austell, Falmouth and Penryn, St Erth
In another cash-saving change, the council is to scrap the annual leaflet delivered to all homes which advises on domestic waste collection and recycling policies and timetables. This will save only £150,000.
The attack on frontline council services was highlighted by Cornwall Reports on Monday as we revealed how projects which help child victims of sexual abuse are among those facing the axe. Many of the details of the budget cuts are hidden within the council’s “online dashboard” and even some cabinet members have not read all of them.
The major political decision facing the council – which seems unlikely to be taken before the 1st May elections – is that its £1.96 billion capital programme is hopelessly unsustainable. The programme costs the council’s revenue budget nearly £1 million a week in borrowing costs. It is almost as if the council's primary role is to support money-lenders.
There is a developing mood that going-nowhere projects like Pydar should be mothballed officially, the site made safe and then offered to Truro City Council, or local community groups, for low-risk ideas such as allotments. County Hall might then later revive its grand visions if economic circumstances improve.
But with the council’s 10-member cabinet apparently caught like rabbits in the headlights, frozen and powerless as doom approaches, their officials’ recommendations are likely to be nodded through today’s meeting without challenge.
Recent cabinet meetings, supposedly to develop a balanced budget, have been concluded in less than an hour with no questions asked.
Executive decision: the future of Cornwall’s adult education service is now in the hands of County Hall chief, who must decide its fate today
By Julia Penhaligon
The crisis in Cornwall’s adult education service has deepened considerably with a government demand to return more than £10 million in “devolved” funds by today (Friday) unless County Hall provides the Department for Education with an acceptable plan for how the cash will be spent.
Cornwall Council chief executive Kate Kennally is poised to make an emergency decision within hours despite widespread concern that Conservative plans to slash the adult education service might be illegal. Cornwall’s MPs, and many Tory councillors, are opposed to the closure of seven adult education centres – most of which are in the north and east of Cornwall.
The choice facing Ms Kennally is to proceed with “home rule” and close the centres or to leave Cornwall’s highly-rated adult learning service with the Department for Education at Whitehall. Cornwall Council voted in November 2023 to accept £10.2 million for taking direct control of adult education. It was a much-trumpeted part of Cornwall’s latest “level 2” devolution deal. At the time, some councillors warned against "sticky fingers" at County Hall.
That warning went unheeded. Instead of improving adult education, the council then set about planning to slash the service, immediately appointing three officials to suggest money-saving ideas. A year later, the “hit list” was drawn up with only a “targeted” consultation despite warnings that it will turn large parts of Cornwall into a “learning desert” for adults. Literacy, numeracy and language courses are all at risk, with 14% of adult students telling the council they will have to abandon their courses if the closures go ahead.
Attempting to explain why there is no time for scrutiny or consultation, and why the council must now use its “urgency procedures,” interim monitoring officer Matt Stokes said: “The Department for Education wrote to the chief executive on 28 January 2025 seeking approval by 31 January 2025. “The correspondence states that, without the approval on 31 January 2025, the council will not be able to meet the window for the regulations being laid before Parliament and that this will mean the council cannot have duties transferred to it for the Academic Year 2025/26 as planned.
“Consequently, this decision must be considered by [insert decision maker] on [date] for the reasons stated above and it is impracticable to defer the decision.” An explanatory note adds: “Cabinet approved the Level 2 Devolution Deal in November 2023. “The Deal devolves Adult Education Functions to Cornwall Council from the academic year 2025/26. The indicative value of the budget is £10.2m per annum for Adult Skills and £730k per annum for Free Courses for Jobs.
“The council has passed the necessary Readiness Requirements to proceed. The Department for Education is now seeking agreement to submit the Cornwall Council (Adult Education Functions) Regulations 2025 to Parliament to transfer adult education functions to Cornwall. This report seeks approval for that agreement.”
Last month St Ives MP Andrew George called for a halt to the “unwise and hurried” closures. Cornwall’s other MPs are also opposed to the closures. Should Ms Kennally go ahead with the closure plan today, there is no guarantee that it will survive in Parliament - allowing Cornwall's Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs to portray themselves as the rescue heroes.
Two weeks ago several Conservative councillors broke ranks and added their voices to the criticism. A Tory-dominated scrutiny committee voted 7-2 to declare that it did not support the closures. Cornwall’s adult education service is rated as “good” by Ofsted. The irony of a well-regarded service rapidly disintegrating immediately on devolution to County Hall is not lost on councillors outside of Truro.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” one Conservative from North Cornwall told Cornwall Reports. “The lack of public consultation, the failure to consider roles for town and parish councils and local community groups, and the very significant impact of the closures on service users all point to the current plan being illegal.
“How has it come to this? Why is everything suddenly urgent? What an eye-watering clusterfuck. The incompetence is breath-taking. Devolution for Cornwall sounds great, but what does it really mean? If it simply means more power and money for those clowns at County Hall, I will fight it until my last breath.”
Waking up from Truro’s Pydar dream: the reality is going to be very different, warns council
By Rashleigh MacFarlane
The ambition to turn Truro’s Pydar area into a “multi-generational residential neighbourhood” with a mix of “leisure, hospitality and cultural facilities” is being dramatically scaled back. A new planning application is being prepared which will include more residential properties at the expense of less profitable elements.
Last year Pydar won an award for "future ambition." It will be interesting to see if the award is returned once the new, less ambitious planning application is published. That planning application should answer questions about the future of the project’s original “Hive” – an “education, research, innovation, business, entertainment and community facilities in a unique environment…becoming a hub for the creative industries, creating wealth, while ensuring the top talent stays in Cornwall.”
A similar “creative hub” – dubbed “The Pixel” - is due to open soon in Penzance. It is years behind schedule, dramatically over budget and managed from Somerset. At the time of writing it still has no tenants. Truro’s “Hive” is a Town Deal project, whose website still promises it will be “created by autumn 2024.”
The Truro Town Deal website says its Hive “will be a hub for the screen and digital sectors focusing on film, television, games and animation but with an emphasis on entrepreneurship, providing a new model of living, learning, working and playing.
“It will be home to students, researchers and entrepreneurs from Falmouth University as well as local digital start-ups.” County Hall’s strategic director for the economy, Phil Mason (a walking disaster at the head of planning and strategy, for the past 30 years), gave a far more downbeat message to scrutiny councillors yesterday (Wednesday) making no mention of The Hive.
“We are now doing the minimum we can do to engage with the market,” said Mr Mason, saying the plan now is to divide Pydar into smaller sectors and sell parts of the site separately, in phases.
The council says it will no longer spend the additional £10 million approved by councillors for Pydar nearly a year ago, cutting the cost of the redesign to £3.5 million and returning £6.5 million to County Hall’s capital budget. For more than two years the site has been a huge hole in the ground following the demolition of a multi-storey car park and other buildings. Cornwall Council has now realised it cannot afford to deliver the original vision, where the original £130 million costs have spiralled to at least £230 million.
Officials had originally sold their ideas on the premise that private financiers were queueing up to invest. That turned out to be not true. Even the promise of taxpayer-backed loan guarantees could not attract the necessary cash. The delivery of residential properties now looks as if it will ultimately depend on the outcome of grant applications to Homes England. Everything now depends on the nature of the new planning application.
“We believe that means we’ve got a more marketable scheme because we wouldn’t have a single developer to take on the whole scheme,” said Mr Mason – raising further questions about the role of the council’s own “master developer” Treveth. “You could do it phase-by-phase. And separately we are continuing with the demolition of the rest of the site because of problems we’re having with anti-social behaviour. "This is a regeneration scheme and we’ve always wanted it to wash its own face.” It is not known if the new planning application will be published before the 1st May Cornwall Council elections.