As the remaining farms around our market towns turn into large poorly-built, out-of-character, mass estates for anyone but young locals who simply can't afford a home in their own back yard, the Cornwall Council-generated chaos moves forward apace, led by ever reliably incompetents, CEO Kate Kennally and her henchman, Director of Strategy, Phil Mason.
The "Silly Season", once a time when tourists would flock to the Duchy's beautiful beaches and unique sights and sites during the summer months, has turned into an all-year-round traffic nightmare, with long queues forming around every major road and back lane daily, simply because in their rush to work with large, unscrupulous national developers, and having no wherewithal, guts or intelligence to fight large planning appeals, farms are now turning into large housing estates at a rate of knots, and of course, in true Cornwall Council-style, with none of the infrastructure and services necessary to accommodate the UK's fastest development rate for housing, leaving a trail of misery and disasters in its wake: water and sewerage totally overwhelmed and exorbitant for homeowners, as well as raw sewage in many fields, bays, rivers and ports, loss of natural habitat, constant black or purple alerts at Treliske Hospital, overwhelmed schools and surgeries, a complete meltdown in adult care & children's services; mental health? try a bed in Newcastle; pot holes? you'll find a page on the website to report that and we'll get to you in 2029!
If you're a road signmaker, concrete producer or temporary traffic light supplier, Cornwall is the gold standard and the new Californ-i-a...
In their infinite wisdom, council "planners" (we use the word loosely) and councillors have approved new mass building sites in dead ends with little or no access, in flood plains, outside town limits (no legal green belts in Cornwall, of course), and overwhelming villages and hamlets, now becoming just congested suburban corridors and being squeezed between formerly neighbouring towns.
They call it progress!
But of course, the planning chaos doesn't stop there; not content with doubling the number of units approved by the building inspector in 2016 for Cornwall's PLAN (2010-30) - we're already over 100,000 built when actually 52,500 were approved at that time - our wise civil servants have managed all this mess whilst accumulating anything between £1.5 and 2 billion in debt (depending on which weird calculation you use - it's probably even higher); and every year we're surprised when council tax rises by the maximum possible allowed in the land, whilst services rapidly disappear; is it any wonder when we're faced by such chronic levels of incompetence, ineptitude, corruption and/or continuous blunders, all completely ringfenced and protected so that there is ZERO accountability or responsibility for any of these council officers, or even of any councillor, themselves protected by the democratic mandate?
What an absolute lash up and how sad for our kids, whose hardworking forefathers' land has been so wantonly destroyed and vandalised by a bunch of shoe-in, under-performing (and probably under-qualified) white collar ego-merchants from distant towns and counties (let's not forget Kate Kennally was somehow recruited from a failed Barnet Council in London, where, in her role as CFO, she oversaw the near bankruptcy of her council at that time).
So here's a few more stories we're recently read on Cornwall Reports, which should raise no eye brows from our own readers, when they are already so familiar with the crass level of waste and mismanagement which is now the norm at Kremlin Kernow aka Cornwall Council:
Cornwall Council claws back £200,000 spaceport grant awarded by former cabinet member by Peter Tremayne
County Hall officials have refused to pay a £200,000 Shared Prosperity Fund grant awarded by Tory councillors to the Newquay spaceport in February.
It is a dramatic new twist in the “Gardner-gate” scandal, underlining how badly County Hall is now seeking to distance itself from its wholly-owned Corserv and airport companies and insulate itself from the police investigation into alleged Misconduct In Public Office – a serious crime which can result in life imprisonment.
Any detectives trying to “follow the money” will now find that this particular attempt to pick the taxpayers’ pocket was unsuccessful.
The grant was approved at a meeting of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Economic Prosperity Board on 27th February.
The council’s then cabinet economy portfolio holder, councillor Louis Gardner, attended that meeting, spoke in support of the grant and actually seconded the proposal to pay it, without declaring his own personal interest.
Six days before that meeting, on 21st February, Corserv had announced the resignation of Cornwall Airport’s managing director Samantha O’Dwyer.
Corserv has subsequently confirmed in Freedom of Information answers that it was Ms O’Dwyer who appointed councillor Gardner to his new £70,000 a year role as Head of Future Air and Space at Newquay.
In the three years that councillor Gardner was in charge of Cornwall’s Shared Prosperity Fund he spent £2.74 million of it on Cornwall Airport Ltd and associated businesses.
The further £200,000 awarded on 27th February was cancelled by a County Hall official on Friday last week (25thApril) on the grounds that the application failed “due diligence” and was poor value for money.
The money would have been for a Cornwall Airport Ltd project titled “Phase 1, Aerospace and Space Sustainability R&D Centre.”
According to council lawyer Matt Stokes, in a message to all councillors, the £200,000 grant was approved by councillors on 27th but “did not pass the subsequent due diligence process on the grounds of value for money, including because the match funding the project required had not been secured.”
Mr Stokes goes on to say that usually details of such SPF grant applications are commercially confidential but that in this case the public interest is better served by disclosure.
“It is appropriate that the council is open about this issue given the significant public and media interest…” adding that the information is now released “in the interests of clarity and transparency.”
Corserv has so far been unable to state precisely when councillor Gardner was hired but has confirmed that he applied for the job last October, was interviewed in October, and was then interviewed again in January – by which time he was the only remaining applicant.
Nearly 30 other candidates, some of them with aviation experience, were rejected.
Corserv’s failure to say precisely when councillor Gardner was hired, or even when its own chief executive first learned of the hiring, has revealed that councillor Gardner’s recruitment was remarkably informal.
On several occasions, over a period of five months, he could and should have declared his personal interest but failed to do so.
News of his confirmation in the job was covered first by Cornwall Reports on 11th March. The Economic Prosperity Board meeting on 27th February was chaired by council leader Linda Taylor.
Moody’s no longer prepared to offer opinion about Cornwall Council’s credit worthiness by Julia Penhaligon
The international credit rating agency Moody’s has removed Cornwall Council from its schedule of published releases for 2025.
The decision, published last week, means Moody’s is no longer prepared to offer an opinion on County Hall’s ability to repay its £1.4 billion debt, currently costing taxpayers £1 million a week in interest charges.
Moody’s took the action in February when the council approved its budget, which still includes a £1.9 billion capital programme. Moody's say it removed Cornwall Council at the request of County Hall.
Officials did not report this request to elected councillors but the most likely explanation is that they concluded that if Moody's could not say anything nice about them, they would prefer Moody's to say nothing at all.
In November, Moody's described Cornwall Council as "stable" but in decline. The agency thought any default on loans was "unlikely" because, it said, the government would intervene.
"The ratings and outlook are supported by Cornwall's track record of budget surpluses and tight expenditure controls, although we expect performance to continue weakening due to sector-wide pressures from rising demand for services and funding levels that are not keeping pace with expenditure needs.
"Cornwall has decent buffers in the form of useable reserves at 22% of operating revenue in fiscal 2024 but we expect the council to continue drawing on its reserves in the coming years to cover its budget gap.
"Cornwall's debt burden is moderate at 92% of operating revenue in fiscal 2024 but it will rise above 100% by fiscal 2026 in order to fund its ambitious capital programme.
"Some of the council's service delivery investments will increase its exposure to commercial, rental and housing market risks. The ratings are constrained by Cornwall's weaker economic growth prospects than the rest of the UK due to its ageing population, which will increase demand for its services, particularly adult social care.
"Cornwall's ratings also incorporate our view that there is a high likelihood that the UK government would act in a timely manner to prevent a default."
At the same time, the council’s own auditors have expressed concern about the true values of some council-owned assets and of the lack of transparency and scrutiny attached to the council’s arms-length companies, such as Corserv and Treveth.
The council's bungled attempted to privatise Newquay Airport was so expensive it triggered a specific raid on reserves. The Armed Forces Day military parade in Falmouth, which was promised to be completely "free" because it was supposed to have been paid for by private sponsorship, actually cost taxpayers £600,000.
The council’s tendency to embark on projects such as buying run-down pubs for £1 million and then trying to write-off the loss without any report to elected councillors has done nothing to boost confidence.
The removal of Cornwall Council from Moody’s schedule of publications has the potential to increase borrowing costs. Lenders could now reasonably infer they would be taking an increased risk. It underlines the “fool’s errands” of sending delegations to investor exhibitions, such as next month’s “Pale Ale-gate” in Leeds, where County Hall hopes to find backers for a £10.6 billion gamble.
Moody’s has offered no specific explanation for dropping Cornwall Council but the New York firm says that generally “Moody’s Ratings withdraws any Credit Rating if, in Moody’s Ratings’ opinion: (i) the information available to support the Credit Rating – whether in terms of factual accuracy, quantity and/or quality – is insufficient to effectively assess the creditworthiness of the Rated Entity or the obligation; and (ii) such information is unlikely to be available to Moody’s Ratings in the near future.”
Cornwall’s exit from Moody’s Sovereign Release Calendar is a significant milestone in the steady decline in the council’s finances over nearly 10 years. Originally designated “AAA” (the most credit-worthy and stable) in 2019 the council was downgraded to Aa2 (long-term stable) after the 2016 Brexit referendum. In 2023 the council was further downgraded to Aa3, tipping the council into the “unstable” zone. County Hall’s removal from Moody’s schedule of publications is the final humiliation.
The curious case of the senior County Hall jobs’ shake-up just eight days before polling day by Anne North
Cornwall Council’s chief executive Kate Kennally is asking the outgoing Conservative administration to approve a major shake-up in the roles of senior County Hall officials.
Any change to the top leadership team is potentially controversial, politically – even more so at the moment with the “Gardner-gate” spaceport job scandal attracting attention from MPs. the police and national media.
Ms Kennally now wants to create a new senior job with a salary of up to £166,000. This would be in place of two other jobs which would be abolished.
What is particularly unusual about the request is its timing. A small committee of councillors is due to meet on Wednesday (23rd April) – just eight days before the council elections – to rubber-stamp her proposal. This would be the final act of the outgoing administration before 1st May polling day.
One of the committee members who is currently listed as “expected” to attend on Wednesday is councillor Louis Gardner, recently installed as the £70,000 Head of Future Air and Space at Newquay spaceport.
Ms Kennally wants to create a new post to be called “strategic director of Community Wellbeing” which would include the successful candidate being the statutory director of Public Health, to replace the strategic director for Neighbourhoods.
The existing strategic director for Neighbourhoods, Sophie Hosking, is retiring in July. The director of Public Health, Rachel Wrigglesworth, has left for a new job at Exeter University.
A report from Ms Kennally says: “The creation of the new Strategic Director – Community Wellbeing will result in the rebalancing of Strategic Director portfolios and some changes in responsibilities. The detail of these changes will be discussed by COEC (Chief Officers Employment Committee) members in closed session.”
Given that the new position has not yet even been advertised, and that Ms Kennally presumably does not have a candidate in mind ahead of an open, fair, transparent and robust recruitment process, it is hard to understand why discussion of the changes needs to be in closed session.
Ms Kennally attempts to justify exclusion of press and public by saying: “Whilst this is a public report, it will be necessary for advice to be provided to the committee to the exclusion of the press and public.
“This is because the advice that will be provided will likely relate to or identify individuals, may include legal advice, and will also relate to the discharge of the council’s business. It will therefore be necessary for the committee to formally resolve to move into exempt session in the usual way.”
The seven councillors who on Wednesday will be asked to go along with this are four Conservatives (Linda Taylor, David Harris, Martyn Alvey and Louis Gardner) and three from the Opposition (Julian German, Colin Martin and Loic Rich.)
It would not be surprising if councillor Gardner is substituted by another Tory for the purposes of Wednesday’s meeting. Confidence in the council’s ability to undertake open, fair, transparent and robust recruitment to lucrative positions has been badly shaken by his appointment to the spaceport job.
The statutory requirement for a Director of Public Health role demands that this person be capable of challenging the administration. Cornwall got first-hand experience of this during the Covid crisis a few years ago.
Confidence in the council’s ability to undertake open, fair, transparent and robust recruitment might be helped by delaying a decision on the creation of the new job until after a new political administration is in place.
Some councillors – and voters – think that anything that looks like it might impact negatively on the ability to challenge the council’s leadership on matters relating to public health should be considered with great care and in considerable detail. Making the decision this side of the election seems very odd.
Corserv shakes off councillors as non-executive directors by Graham Smith
The link between Cornwall Council and its wholly-owned, arms-length group of companies appears to have suddenly become much weaker, after a decision by chief executive Kate Kennally to remove from the Corserv board all non-executive directors who are also elected councillors.
The decision notice, published on the council’s website, also applies to subsidiary companies within the group.
The effect of the decision will be to limit even further the exchange of information between Corserv and elected members, making it more difficult for councillors to find out what is going on with highways repairs, care staff, council housing, Newquay Airport and a host of other taxpayer-funded services and facilities.
The Cornwall Council cabinet member with the main responsibility for Corserv is Richard Pears, who had been a non-executive director since November 2017.
One explanation for the development is that councillors who were also non-exec directors sometimes struggled with a conflict of interest, particularly when Corserv felt itself under attack from elements within County Hall.
The development seems to be clearly linked to the recent change of political control, with Cornwall’s Conservatives having previously argued in favour of granting Corserv greater commercial freedoms.
With no debate, the link between Cornwall Council, in Truro, and its wholly-owned group of companies, Corserv, based at Wadebridge, has just been weakened
But critics of the move will point out that most of the difficulties which Corserv has encountered in recent years have stemmed from a lack of political oversight and scrutiny, rather than interference.
The way in which such a major constitutional change has happened, without any discussion by the council’s cabinet or scrutiny committees, will also alarm some councillors who believe that Corserv needs more democracy, not less.
How Cornwall Council’s chief executive tried to show a cabinet member who’s really in charge, in the months leading to Cormac-gate scandal by Graham Smith
Cornwall Council chief executive Kate Kennally tried to report one of her own cabinet members to County Hall’s standards committee because of the way he tried to raise concerns about a serious industrial accident to one of his constituents.
The disclosure is likely to unnerve existing councillors worried that their own chief executive is prepared to take disciplinary action against them if they step out of line and question her judgement.
In 2020 Ms Kennally sought the opinion of her then Monitoring Officer over whether a Code of Conduct complaint against former councillor Bob Egerton might be successful. At the time Mr Egerton was the council’s cabinet member for economic development.
Ms Kennally’s concern stemmed from Mr Egerton’s pursuit of information about an accident which ended the career of a Cormac worker who suffered a serious head injury.
Ms Kennally was particularly concerned that Mr Egerton had raised the issue with the Health and Safety Executive. Her response has come to light in a volume of heavily-redacted documents which trace communications between County Hall and Corserv.
Corserv is wholly-owned by the council but the two organisations were at loggerheads over responsibility: the council has policies about safety and the need to protect whistle-blowers but day-to-day operational control rests with Corserv.
At the centre of the “Cormac-gate” scandal was Corserv’s failure to accurately report the accident when it happened in December 2016. The cause of the accident remains a mystery.
A swifter, more serious response from Corserv might have identified the cause and improved workplace safety. In fact, the serious misrepresentation of the accident in the original report to the H&SE meant that Corserv avoided a formal investigation and possible prosecution. The H&SE later said the company’s handling of the issue had been unacceptable.
In one of the few emails to survive redaction before being released under Freedom of Information rules. Ms Kennally said: “On 5th February 2020 I received information from (REDACTED) which I sought the opinion of the Monitoring Officer as to whether there could potentially be any standards issues involved with Cllr Egerton as a senior councillor bringing the council into disrepute through his interactions with HSE.”
The Monitoring Officer, at that time Melanie O’Sullivan, advised that further talks with Mr Egerton might be more productive than the “big stick” of a formal Code of Conduct complaint. Ms Kennally did not pursue the idea of formal disciplinary action.
Two months later Mr Egerton resigned his cabinet role and continued to campaign from the backbenches for the truth about the accident. The council’s “Independent Person” who adjudicates on Code of Conduct issues later praised Mr Egerton for his tenacity in pursuing the issue.
While this latest disclosure of yet another collection of Cormac-gate documents sheds no new light on the cause of the accident, more than five years ago, it does illuminate the way that County Hall perceives such issues and responds primarily to protect its reputation, rather than investigate to find the truth. This is evident from the eye-watering levels of redaction, with whole pages sometimes struck through with thick black lines. One email starts with the word “Hi” and the remainder is completely redacted. There is no clue as to who wrote it, who it was sent to, when it was sent or what it was about. All we know is that it somehow relates to Cormac-gate.
The disclosures reveals that Cornwall Council and Corserv use online internet-monitoring websites to find out what people are saying about them. The disclosed emails make several references to Cornwall Reports. One of the few sentences to survive redaction shows Corserv’s group managing director, Cath Robinson, making “an educated guess” about the source of leaked information.
Later another Corserv official wrote: “Dear all. Just so you are aware the article below has been published by Graham Smith in Cornwall Reports today. There has been no wider pick up from other media, however we continue to monitor.”
Nothing to see here: communications between Cornwall Council and its wholly-owned company Corserv, about the Cormac-gate scandal, are so heavily redacted as to be incapable of shedding any information about workplace safety
Former Cornwall councillor Bob Egerton resigned his role as a cabinet member in order to campaign for information about the accident. At the time he did not know that Cornwall Council's chief executive, Kate Kennally, wanted to take disciplinary action against him for daring to challenge her judgement.
Another heavily redacted email from Ms Kennally, thought to be addressed to former council leader councillor Julian German, justifies her response to Cormac-gate and asks: “I hope that in this context you will agree that I have not been negligent in my responsibilities.”
Further FOI questions now flow naturally, such as how often Ms Kennally has sought the opinion of her Monitoring Officer about taking disciplinary action against councillors who try to defend the interests of people who elected them.