As my colleague Alex Folkes writes on his ‘A Lanson Boy‘ blog, Cornwall Council’s Cabinet has today voted to approve a bid for ‘Next Generation’ broadband. This could potentially deliver domestic broadband speeds of up to 100mb (a hundred times faster than those currently experienced by many rural areas) and 1Gb for businesses.

This is fantastic news for rural communities and for business development, and all credit to Carolyn Rule, the Cabinet Member for Economy, for running with a scheme that was started under the previous administration at Cornwall County Council. Given that the decision commits the Council to at least £1 million of funding, Mrs Rule has obviously fought her corner well in the current climate of spending cuts throughout local government. Having been involved with this project in the last Council I am more than happy to give Mrs Rule and her team (led by the amazing Nigel Ashcroft) my full support. Keep up the good work!

Vince Cable delivered his speech to the Liberal Democrat Conference this morning. In it he tackled the issues of the broken, discredited banking system, how to lead Britain out of the longest recession since the War and how to deal with the unsustainable level of Government borrowing.

You can read the text of Vince’s speech here.

Vince Cable is quite rightly seen by many as the only Treasury spokesman from any of the main parties who has consistently called the financial crisis accurately. This is in stark contrast to George Osborne, whose position seems to change with the wind, while still managing to be on the wrong side of the argument every time.

As Paddy Ashdown remarked recently: “You only get Vince Cable if you vote Liberal Democrat”.

You know something significant is round the corner when struggling PPCs start leaping before they’ve had a good look. It seems that one of them from my neck of the woods has been doing just that.

The PPC in question has decided to do a spot of grandstanding by getting involved in a highways issue in my division. One of their national party spokesmen has attended, a leafleting exercise has taken place and a strongly worded letter has been drafted to the top people at the Council. Unfortunately the candidate didn’t bother to contact the local member (me) to ask a couple of simple questions. Had that most basic of courtesies taken place it would have become clear that the Highways department have already agreed in principle to do the necessary work. (Although I don’t suppose there are too many press releases to be gleaned from “Basic Traffic Works Agreed”.)

Anyone would think there was an election in the offing.

This morning I attended a meeting of the Council’s Communities Committee, of which I am a member. This is a broad-ranging committee, as can be seen from the wide selection of topics on today’s agenda: Crime and Disorder, Fire and Rescue, Gypsies and Travellers, Housing and Homelessness and One Stop Shops.

The first item involved a discussion around how Cornwall Council can form better links with the Devon and Cornwall Police Authority in order to strengthen the fight against crime. The Police Authority is a body made up of Councillors from across Cornwall and Devon and independently appointed members of the public. It works alongside the police, appoints the Chief Constable, sets the budget and monitors the performance of the force. The prevailing view at the committee was to call on its membership only when specific policing issues arise. Happily I was able to persuade my colleagues that it would be better for everybody if Cornwall Council understood the police a little better and vice versa - we will therefore be suggesting to the Police Authority that one of their members attends the Communities Committee at all of our meetings, not just the ones that directly involve policing matters.

It’s all too easy for different public bodies to work in isolation but I hope that a step like this can help to promote a better understanding of how we can all work together to make our communities safer.

Julian German, Cornwall Council’s Cabinet Member with responsibility for Waste, has today told BBC Radio Cornwall’s Laurence Reed show that the Tory-led administration is considering moving to fortnightly rubbish collections after all. In many respects this is hardly breaking news, as the Cabinet’s own budget papers from December included a line about the move, but what is interesting is the complete muddle the Council have got themselves into over the presentation of the whole issue.

Julian, to be fair to him, believes that such a policy would significantly increase Cornwall’s recycling rate, while his Tory bosses at the Council probably think there’s a shilling or two to be saved. I happen to disagree with both points of view but I do respect Julian’s sincerity on the issue. The Conservatives, however, have reacted to the suggestion with nothing short of panic. During last year’s Council elections many of their leaflets promised that they would oppose such a move, but now it turns out that the administration they lead is proposing the very same thing they were so strongly opposed to less than a year ago.

When this policy first appeared in the Cabinet budget papers last December the Council were quick to put out a press release claiming, in a less than noble fashion, that it had been included by officers and that it wasn’t the view of the administration. This struck me as odd at the time because no budget papers should go forward without the approval of the relevant Cabinet Member. In other words, the officers were leading the Council and the Cabinet Members couldn’t be bothered to read the papers.

But even that wasn’t entirely what was behind it. Julian German had spoken in favour of fortnightly collections at January’s Cabinet meeting which led one to believe that the proposal had been included with his blessing. Denial, diversion, obfuscation - the whole thing was being played out in the manner of the Conservative Party’s ten-year refusal to address the Michael Ashcroft situation.

Mercifully it now looks like one of the Cabinet Members has made a break for it in the direction of (at least partial) ‘transparency and openness’. I still believe he’s wrong (fortnightly collections do no favours to those who live in small properties with little storage, and I don’t believe seagulls need any further encouragement in our seaside towns and villages) but at least there can now be a debate on honest terms.

Much has been said about ’scaremongering’ with regard to this issue, but surely an open debate about items that the Cabinet have themselves identified has to be welcomed. You’d have thought so, anyway.

Today I’ve attended the monthly meeting of the Education Transport Appeals Panel, of which I am Vice Chairman. Whenever I mention this to anyone their eyes glaze over and they immediately assume that it must be the most dreary piece of work a councillor could possibly be involved in. Believe it or not, the reverse is true.

There are a number of instances in which a child in Cornwall is entitled to free transport from their home (or nearby) to their school, and Cornwall Council has a set of policies which govern this. From time to time a family’s circumstances may fall outside these criteria (for example, if circumstances force them to relocate while one of their number is in the middle of their GCSE courses). This is where we come in.

No two cases are ever the same - sometimes we will hear from parents who seek assistance for positive reasons and sometimes we will hear harrowing tales of a mother and her children fleeing from domestic violence. Obviously we can’t please everyone whose case comes before us but we always try to listen and treat everyone the same way.

It’s never clear-cut and it’s never easy. It’s never boring either.

It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that the road surface between No Man’s Land and Winnard’s Perch (A39) has left a little bit to be desired over the last year or two. A combination of drainage issues, a generally ageing surface and (let’s be perfectly honest) years of underfunding by successive County Councils have led to a rapid deterioration of this busy section of North Cornwall’s main artery to the rest of the Duchy. Add to this the effect of the recent cold spell and it has become clear that urgent action needed to be taken to maintain safety.

Thankfully the Highways Department at Cornwall Council have recognised this and resurfacing work has been brought forward a year, commencing today. There will now be three weeks of roadworks along this stretch of road but hopefully the short term delays will be worth it.

If you are a regular reader of this page you will know that I’m never shy of criticising the powers-that-be at County Hall when I feel they deserve it. Equally I must give them full credit for cracking on (no pun intended) with this extremely important work programme.

Peter Lewis, Cornwall Council’s Corporate Director for Corporate Support (I know, I know), is leaving the authority after less than a year in the post. Peter’s department has overseen the recent budget and is also the driving force behind the Council’s “Office Accommodation Vision”. While I have had a few battles with the Corporate Support Directorate over the last few months, Peter has always been courteous and helpful to me and other members and I wish him the very best in the future.

However, I was surprised to read the Chief Executive’s comments on Mr Lewis’s decision: “Over recent months, and particularly during discussions about the Council’s Business Plan, budget and improvement agenda, Corporate Support Director Peter Lewis has expressed a desire to sharpen the focus and increase the pace of change beyond what I consider the Council is ready for at this time. Consequently Peter has decided to leave Cornwall Council in order to contribute to an organisation with which he can feel more aligned.”

All credit to the Chief Executive for avoiding the usual bland platitudes that tend to crop up in these circumstances, but is this really the message the Tory-led administration want to put out, one of a fundamental lack of ambition for Cornwall at the Council’s top table?

Debate on the Budget at today’s Council meeting was abruptly cut short by the administration, seemingly because the Deputy Leader wanted to have his lunch.

Having sat in near silence through the discussion of the proposals put forward by his own department (he briefly stood up to be needlessly rude to Cllr Edwina Hannaford) he moved that the vote be taken while at least fifteen councillors from all parties were still waiting to ask questions about the implications of the Cabinet’s proposals.

As a result, there are still a large number of unanswered questions about, for example, whether any libraries will be closed, what the Cabinet’s plans are for fortnightly rubbish collections, how they propose to fund repairs to the road network after the recent freeze and so on.

And they still keep repeating the same joke about openness and transparency…

Today Cornwall Council passed its first Budget as put forward by the ruling Conservative/Independent administration. It has been condemned as a “Budget of broken promises” by Liberal Democrats at County Hall.

Conservative Councillors had in many cases been elected on a promise of freezing Council Tax but have instead risked capping by central government after proposing an increase of 2.9% at the meeting.

The Lib Dem Group Leader Doris Ansari said: “This is a budget of broken promises. The Conservatives promised a freeze in Council Tax but instead, aided and abetted by the so-called Independents, they’re foisting a huge increase on the Cornish taxpayer in the middle of a recession. This is in spite of £15 million savings from One Cornwall and a £9.2 million increase in the grant from central government.

“They also promised to oppose fortnightly rubbish collections, but that is exactly what is being proposed for the coming years. It seems they will quite happily say one thing to get elected, but do quite the opposite when they find themselves in power.”

Ann Kerridge, who is the Lib Dem Budget spokesman, added: “Even with this above-inflation rise in Council Tax they are still threatening cuts to some of our most important services. Libraries, leisure centres and weekly rubbish collections have all been identified by their own Cabinet papers as being under threat, and those are only the things they’re prepared to tell us about. The Conservatives promised to protect frontline services but they’ve started to cut the things that matter to people at the very first opportunity.”

As is now becoming traditional, questions were also raised about the Leader of the Council’s early commitment to “transparency and openness”. Councillor Robin Teverson remarked: “We’ve seen a culture of secrecy develop at Cornwall Council over the last eight months. At every turn communities have been the last to learn about Cabinet proposals which directly affect them. We’ve seen it over school closures and the removal of Council services, and they’re conducting their budget discussions in exactly the same way. They’ve set aside £7 million to cover redundancy payments but they haven’t given any indication of where those cuts will fall. Staff have been told that at least 600 jobs will go but they haven’t said which areas are at risk.

“Is it any wonder staff morale within the Council is at an all-time low?

“The Conservatives’ promises of transparency and openness have already been shown to be as empty as their other promises on Council Tax, fortnightly rubbish collections and frontline services.”