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!

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.

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.”

At Cornwall Council’s Cabinet meeting in Truro today there was a brief glimmer of hope that the ruling Tory-led administration are starting to realise that they just can’t go on losing the argument over Higher Trenant. They have agreed to put the building back into their wider “Office Accommodation Vision”, although they have voted to declare the surrounding land surplus to requirements.

It’s a step in the right direction as it means they will now theoretically treat this office suite in exactly the same way as every other building they own or lease, but no one who attended today’s meeting can be in any doubt as to their medium to long-term intentions.

There was absolutely no logic to what they were trying to do here. While I welcome this partial delay, it remains the Cabinet’s medium-term plan to sell a modern, award-winning office building for - they hope - £10 million, replace it with another building six miles away at a cost of at least £12.5 million. Not surprisingly, everyone has told them what an outstandingly bad idea that would be.

They still seem very keen to press ahead but they haven’t yet been able to give anyone a straight answer to the question of why they are in such a hurry to dispose of this site.

They have a building which doesn’t need to be replaced, a replacement which doesn’t need to be built, a business case that doesn’t even begin to stack up, public derision at the proposals, and still absolutely no answer to the question of why they need to rush ahead with this madcap scheme before their own office review has even started.

Today I attended a presentation at County Hall which set out to explain the Council’s “vision” for the future of its office buildings across Cornwall. There is a general consensus within the Council that it is right for the authority to have a good look at the buildings it owns and leases and to decide which are needed and which are not. So far so good.

The problem with this process has been that the Council (Cabinet and officers) have consistently refused to give the 123 members the information they need to be able to represent their communities effectively on this matter. As you will probably know, this is a theme that I have returned to time and time again - if you’re tired of reading it, imagine how tired I am of writing it. However, at today’s briefing it quickly became clear that I’m not the only one who thinks there is a fundamental obsession with secrecy at the heart of the new Council.

The officers who presented the briefing (their Cabinet Member, while present, remained conspicuously silent throughout) were slightly taken aback at the reaction of members from all sides of the chamber, with the Corporate Director stepping in at one point to complain about the ‘hostile feel’ to the meeting. Things became fairly heated at times but I wouldn’t go quite so far as to call it hostile. A lot of people in the room were angry because a select group of officers and a Member of the Cabinet appear to be the only ones who have been given a full picture of what it is the Council plan to achieve.

Once again I asked for a straight answer to a straight question (”Why has Higher Trenant been separated from the rest of the office accommodation review?”) and once again the request fell upon deaf ears. To be honest, I ended up feeling a little sorry for the officers in question but ultimately they were the people standing there giving the presentation. (By rights the Cabinet Member should have had some involvement but instead he seemed quite content to let his officers take the strain.)

Of course, the easiest way to have dealt with the ‘hostility’ would have been for the presenting officers to have indicated that they were prepared to give the relevant information to members. Fat chance. The culture of secrecy continues…

Local Government is full to the brim with jargon, management-speak and TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms). One such is Cornwall Council’s ‘Forward Plan’ - a Parish Councillor once asked me if there was any such thing as a ‘Backward Plan’ - and this has been a staple of Full Council agendas since I first became a councillor in 2005. Essentially it lists, portfolio by portfolio, the Cabinet Members’ plans for the coming months and, as a Full Council agenda item, gives members the chance to ask questions of the executive and hold them to account. Or at least it used to.

At the last Council meeting the Forward Plan had disappeared, supposedly to streamline the meeting. At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, we’re back to the ruling group’s obsessive culture of secrecy again. At the previous few Council meetings (as had always been the case in the past) tough questions were asked of the Cabinet and they were made to account for their actions or, in many cases, lack of them. It has been very clear to anyone who has attended recent meetings of the Council (or followed proceedings on Twitter) that one or two Portfolio Holders have particularly struggled at this part of the meeting, not least because their part of the Plan has been almost totally empty.

What better way to deal with the awkward silences than to remove the entire item from the agenda? Never mind those distant promises of “transparency and openness”, if you can close debate down completely that will surely make life much easier for the elite ten who make nearly all of Cornwall Council’s decisions. Imagine the uproar if Prime Minister’s Questions were removed because Gordon Brown didn’t fancy it much.

We can all still see the Forward Plan (such as it is) we just can’t ask any questions on it in Full Council any more unless those questions have been tabled a few days in advance - hardly a model of openness.

At short notice a public meeting was held in Wadebridge this morning to give members of the public a chance to have a say on Cornwall Council’s plans to reduce the number of office buildings it uses, and in particular to discuss the proposed sale of Higher Trenant. This meeting wasn’t arranged by the Cabinet, who will have the final say on any proposals, instead it was called by John Keeling, Independent Chairman of the Corporate Resources Committee. This committee is going to make recommendations to the Cabinet on its approach to these issues, and the Chairman and membership clearly felt there was something to be gained by listening to the views of the local population. They should be applauded for that.

I’ve covered many of the arguments against the sale of Higher Trenant here before, so I won’t go down that road again, but what came up time and time again at today’s meeting was how flimsy the business case for a sale looks. The Council believe that the former NCDC offices could raise up to £10 million (in other words that would be at the top end of their expectations) whereas they estimate the cost of a replacement building in Bodmin to be £12.5 million. (The £10 million figure would appear to relate solely to the offer from Sainsbury’s.)

Those figures are enough to make you scratch your head, but what happens to those numbers if (as some would say is looking increasingly likely) Morrison’s pip Sainsbury’s to the post? Morrison’s have already stated publicly that, based on their market research, they would withdraw their plan if Sainsbury’s got the go-ahead before them, as they don’t feel there would be room for two new supermarkets. Presumably Sainsbury’s market research has given them a similar picture, and if they withdrew what would the Council do then about a property they seem desperate to declare surplus to requirements, but which would suddenly have no buyer?

In such a scenario (which is not wildly far-fetched) how much could they expect to recoup from the sale of a building that they would already have announced to the world that they didn’t want? You can insert your own figure here but you can be sure it won’t be anywhere near the £10 million that they’ve bandied about at today’s meeting, and it will be even further away from the £12.5 million (at least) that it will take to build a replacement in Bodmin.

It’s no wonder the public raised questions about the business planning and lack of basic mathematics behind this plan. The question now is will they get any answers?

Today’s meeting of the Corporate Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee was dominated by the administration’s plans for the ‘rationalisation’ of the Council’s office buildings. Although I am not a member of the committee, I attended today to join the debate on the future of Higher Trenant. The Chairman, John Keeling, is something of a guru when it comes to scrutinising administrations and I was extremely grateful to him and his Vice Chair, Dave Biggs, for understanding the complexities of this issue and for allowing Collin Brewer and me to speak to the report.

You may recall that I had a spot of bother getting answers to some fairly straightforward questions at last week’s Cabinet meeting, and it quickly became apparent to everyone in today’s meeting that the Higher Trenant report simply wasn’t robust enough for the Cabinet to make a sound decision at their next meeting on Monday. My plea to the meeting, and the Cabinet member present, was that there was no pressing need for this item to be taken at the next Cabinet when there were still so many gaping holes in the report.

The Cabinet member concerned is Jim Currie, who is also the Conservative Deputy Leader of the Council. Mr Currie and I have had one or two disagreements in the past, but it is to his immense credit that he listened to the debate at today’s meeting and agreed to discuss deferring the item with the Leader of the Council. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the issue has gone away but at least we can now hope the Cabinet will have the proper information available to them when they do come to make a decision on Higher Trenant at a future meeting.

After the meeting it emerged that the Cabinet’s decision on the “Office Accommodation Vision” would be called in by the Corporate Resources Committee for re-examination. (My colleague Alex Folkes writes about this here.) It’s likely that the Cabinet will simply reaffirm their decision at the end of this process but, hopefully, somewhere along the line they may learn that the information they give to members and the great Cornish public needs to be a little more ‘open and transparent’.

Earlier today I went down to New County Hall to observe a meeting of Cornwall Council’s Cabinet. Under the government’s “Strong Leader Model” a council’s Cabinet is the main decision-making body of a local authority (although we are always told that the Full Council remains sovereign). According to the constitution, only councillors who are members of this body are entitled to speak or vote on recommendations, but it is to the Leader of the Council’s credit that he has continued the tradition of allowing backbenchers to speak to items on the agenda (although we have no vote), particularly now there are 123 members of the Council.

So I was grateful to the Leader, Alec Robertson, for inviting me to speak on agenda item 7 today, the stylishly-titled “Office Accommodation Vision 2010-15“. The jist of this item is that the Council are looking to make the best use of the office buildings they have inherited after the merger of the seven previous councils and to dispose of those that aren’t required. (I don’t necessarily have an issue with this in principle, provided the main consideration is what is in the interests of local communities.) The report makes mention of reducing the number of principal office buildings from 78 to 30 by 2015 and also commissions a “feasibility and business case” for the creation of a new Bodmin office.

There were two main parts to my question. Firstly, could the administration provide a list of the 48 premises (a reasonably specific number) that it has earmarked for disposal? Secondly, with regard to the new building in Bodmin, the Cabinet report stated that the feasibility study should “examine the effect a new office would have on service provision in other towns in east Cornwall”. How, I asked, could the Cabinet take a decision in isolation on the future of Higher Trenant (as they will at their meeting on 25th January) before this study had taken place? Shouldn’t the estate be examined as a whole?

Rather than bring in the relevant Cabinet Member, Mr Currie, the Leader attempted to field these questions himself. He said that we couldn’t be told which buildings had been identified because the review hadn’t started yet. Fair enough, I countered, but how then was such a specific figure of 48 arrived at? He repeated that the review hadn’t started yet and attempted to move on to the next speaker, but I reminded him that I had also asked about Higher Trenant. He shrugged his shoulders, muttered something about the next meeting and duly moved on. The assembled councillors, journalists and members of the public were all none the wiser for the exchange.

Much as I am grateful to the Leader for inviting my questions, there doesn’t really seem to be much point if there’s no danger of receiving a meaningful answer. I would have liked to have heard from the relevant portfolio-holder, Jim Currie, who spent most of the meeting arms folded, tutting, frowning and muttering under his breath. I wanted to help him get things off his chest and explain to everybody why the report he was responsible for was such a complete mess of contradictions. I wanted to give him the opportunity to explain why everything in the report pointed to the possibility that these decisions have already been taken and that any subsequent “consultation” will simply be an exercise in window dressing. Sadly I didn’t get the chance. But I’ll try again on the 25th January.

Cornwall Council’s Cabinet will be considering ‘options’ for the former NCDC Higher Trenant site at Wadebridge on Monday 25th January, not Wednesday 13th as had been previously advertised. I’m told that the Cabinet are ‘relaxed’ about the potential disposal of the building and that the recommendation they will consider will be worded along the lines of “The Cabinet agrees to consider all options relating to the site and that it is declared surplus to the Council’s requirements”. The papers for this meeting are due to be published on 18th January and will be available to be viewed via this link.

In the course of discussions I have had with Cornwall Council officers on this topic the following points have been made clear:

The proposed sale of the site has absolutely no bearing on the Council’s budgetary considerations. It was clearly stated to me that this is a “stand-alone issue” which will be considered on its own merits (or hopefully, lack thereof). This therefore leaves the Cabinet in the happy position of having a clear choice on this issue - there is no gun being held to their heads.

A new building at Bodmin is being considered as a replacement. I’m told this new project will result in a modern, energy efficient building being constructed for the “rationalisation of staff accomodation” for those people working in the North Cornwall area. I don’t know how much this will cost but this new-build sounds not unlike the building the Council seem so keen to offload at Higher Trenant.

A full assessment into the possible impact on the local economy will be produced before any sale is agreed. I have asked for this twice and have received assurances on both occasions that this will be forthcoming. Such an assessment would need to consider not only the effects of relatively well-paid local government jobs being replaced by low-paid, mostly part-time supermarket jobs, but also the effects on the wider local economy of the sale of Higher Trenant to a huge national retail chain.

Many within Cornwall Council’s ruling Tory/Independent administration have tried to pin the blame for this situation on the previous County Council but it’s worth remembering that this sale was first presented to members of North Cornwall District Council with a recommendation for approval by their own officers. Thankfully councillors rejected that advice and turned down the offer from Sainsbury’s in January 2009. The new administration at County Hall has been in place for the majority of time since then and has had every opportunity to stop the drawing of staff away from Higher Trenant but instead seems happy to leave the running of things to the Council’s Chief Executive. It’s high time they showed some responsibility for their own choices and stopped behaving like an opposition.

Let’s hope they give this issue the consideration it deserves before making an irreversible decision to sell a major local asset during a recession.

At this morning’s Communities Overview and Scrutiny Meeting I asked whether the Tory-led administration had any proposals for the provision of the ‘One Stop Shop’ service in Wadebridge if the sale of the two current sites (Higher Trenant and Trevanion Road) goes ahead. These sites currently deal with around 4,500 enquiries a month from residents in the surrounding area, but it doesn’t appear that the Council have given a great deal of thought to what might happen if, as proposed, they sell Higher Trenant to Sainsbury’s and Trevanion Road to a housing developer.

The response I received was that options have been ‘explored’ for ‘new re-provision’ of these services in the Town Centre. The Cabinet had better hurry up - the Higher Trenant sale is on the agenda for this month’s meeting and Trevanion Road won’t be too far behind. Throughout the whole ‘Sainsbury’s Affair’ one of my main questions has been what will happen to local government provision for the residents of the area. It’s time now for some answers.

Today was my first Committee meeting of the New Year and we convened at a freezing County Hall for the Communities Overview & Scrutiny Committee. The only item of the morning was the Cabinet’s Draft Budget Proposals (which I’ve previously written about here). The meeting continues this afternoon but one or two points did arise this morning which will require further scrutiny over the coming days and weeks.

Firstly, the Conservative-led Council is proposing to increase borrowing by 30% over the next three-and-a-half years, bringing the total to £650 million. Secondly, despite repeated questions from my colleague Alex Folkes, they were very reluctant to give any indication of the level of funding available for Community Grants, returning time and again to the mantra that such discussions shouldn’t take place in a public forum. Strange, considering these are public funds going to organisations who exist to serve the public. My worry is that there is going to be an agressive strategy of cutting assistance to these bodies which may have far-reaching consequences for local communities. We’ll see.

Once again the topic of openness and transparency reared its ugly head, with two more Members (Judith Haycock and Des Curnow, both Independent Councillors) complaining that cuts to services in their wards had been identified without any consultation with them or their communities. The charge sheet on this subject seems to be getting longer all the time (you will of course remember the issues the communities of St Mabyn and St Tudy had with Cornwall Council over school closures) and it makes the Leader’s promise to make transparency a top priority for the new administration seem like a distant joke.

It may be a New Year but the Cabinet are still up to their old tricks.

Earlier today I was lucky enough to be shown around the facilities at St Eval which were purpose-built for the American forces who had been stationed there until quite recently. It was quite extraordinary and left me reflecting on the different approaches adopted by the British and US governments to providing facilities to the armed forces.

Above is a Google Earth image which shows (clockwise from bottom left) a youth centre, a sports hall, a church (now deconsecrated) and a school/centre for younger children. The Americans don’t tend to do anything by half, and these facilities are arguably as good as (if not better than) anything you’d find in the UK. The ‘no expense spared’ attitude and attention to detail (individual picture hooks fitted with their own spirit levels) is in stark contrast to the reports of inadequate equipment and conditions endured by our own service men and women serving abroad. It is a testament to the skill of our forces that, in spite of everything, they are still regarded as the best in the world.

The other side of this is that these wonderful facilities are totally empty and surrounded by a seven foot high razorwire fence. Just over the road in St Eval itself local children cram into a portakabin which serves as a pre-school and the main community centre is based around buildings owned by the MoD which are falling into disrepair and have serious issues with asbestos.

As the time draws near when the MoD pulls further back from St Eval the existing facilities will come under serious threat. I would hope that Cornwall Council will be able to play a positive role in the future of the community and I will certainly be trying my hardest to facilitate this. In an ideal world the Council would acquire the US facilities for the benefit of St Eval and the surrounding area, but I’m fully aware that such a scenario is a long way off. Nevertheless it would be nothing short of a tragedy if the village’s community facilities came under threat while, just over the road, a wonderful resource lay untapped behind the razorwire.

As I posted here a couple of days ago, Cornwall Council’s Draft Budget Proposal was discussed at Cabinet today and included a mere line or two about proposals to move to fortnightly rubbish collections in the east and west of the Duchy (including North Cornwall).

The Lib Dem Group Leader, Doris Ansari, was the first to raise this issue at today’s meeting and Andrew Wallis (Independent) also launched a strong attack on the proposals. (Cllr Wallis writes about the meeting here and my colleague Alex Folkes’ take on proceedings can be found here.) Neither the Leader, Alec Robertson, nor the Cabinet Member for Waste, Julian German, were prepared to rule out ‘Alternate Weekly Collections’ and Cllr German even went on to say it would be “foolhardy” not to give this serious consideration.

Many people who have spoken to me about this over the last couple of days are deeply worried about this because, while in theory such proposals might reduce costs and increase recycling rates, in practice they could lead to odours, problems with rats and an epidemic of fly-tipping.

The surprising thing about all of this is that no one from the Conservative-led Council has volunteered this information to the public at any point (other than in a line or two buried on page 52 of a report) and no-one at Cabinet today could have been in any doubt that, had Doris and Andrew not raised the issue, this would have quietly slipped through to the next stage of the budget process without comment. I’ve written before about the administration’s cavalier attitude to openness and transparency, but it really is starting to go beyond a joke now.

Cornwall Council are planning to introduce fortnightly rubbish collections within two years if the Conservative-led administration passes its budget in February.

The proposals are tucked away in the smallprint of the Cabinet’s 2010-1 Budget papers and would see the east and the west of Cornwall affected while the old Carrick and Restormel areas would retain weekly coverage - for now.

Strangely enough the administration has mentioned nothing about this in public and I wonder if the two year time gap has anything to do with a General Election next year. This proposal will come as a shock to many, not least because it doesn’t affect the Truro area where Conservative representation is considerably stronger than here in the east.

The Liberal Democrat group at Cornwall Council will fight this all the way and I would expect many Independent councillors will join us. Let’s hope so.

At Full Council this morning I asked the Cabinet Member for Children, Conservative Sally Bain, if she welcomed the result of the recent referendum held in St Mabyn and St Tudy. (You may remember that 97.3% of the residents of both villages voted to keep their schools within the villages.)

You might think that this would be an easy opportunity for Mrs Bain to gracefully accept the will of local residents and offer her congratulations to them for pulling together to defend their community, particularly since the initial proposals for closures have now been dropped by the Council and the Diocese. Not a bit of it. Unfortunately Mrs Bain felt unable to welcome the result (”I don’t know whether to answer yes or no to that”) and, astonishingly, she went on to question whether the St Tudy and St Mabyn Action Group were really acting in the best interests of their children! For a brief moment I found myself lost for words but managed to recover in time to assure her that, yes, the parents of children at St Mabyn and St Tudy Schools did act in the best interests of those children and that those communities would be very disappointed to hear that there was any doubt about that.

Unfortunately the Conservative-led administration is running into all sorts of trouble on the issue of rural schools. It emerged today that around a third of Cornwall’s primary schools have been highlighted by the administration as being ‘at risk’ of closure, although of course they have (in the classic form of words) ’no plans’ to close any schools. It would appear that the considerable campaigning expertise in the villages of St Mabyn and St Tudy may yet be needed elsewhere in Cornwall in the coming months and years. Rest assured, that expertise will come with the best interests of the children very much in mind.

(A related post on Alex Folkes’ “A Lanson Boy” blog can be seen here.)

The St Tudy and St Mabyn Action Group, set up to prevent the closures of the two village schools, has scored a stunning victory on the back of yesterday’s overwhelming referendum result. Representatives from Cornwall Council confirmed at a meeting in St Mabyn last night that they have dropped plans to replace the two schools with a single facility at Longstone or anywhere else.

This follows an impressive campaign from the Group which culminated in a 97.3% vote rejecting the plans put forward by the Council and the Diocese. Well done to all those involved and all credit to the officials from both bodies who have listened and heard the voices of the two communities. Rural schools will face many strong threats over the coming months and years, but this is still a great result for ‘People Power’.

The result of the St Tudy & St Mabyn Schools Referendum has been announced live on Pirate FM by residents Chris Mugford and Matt Slater. On a 70% turnout (higher than the last General Election) 97.3% voted “Yes” to the question: “Do you agree that both St.Mabyn and St.Tudy should keep their schools within their respective villages?”. This is a pretty clear message to Cornwall Council and the Diocese, and I’m looking forward to their response (I’m guessing it will include the phrase “no plans to close the schools” while going on to talk about a potential new site which, if built, would inevitably result in the closure of the two schools).

This result is a fantastic demonstration of unity from the two villages and follows on from what I felt was a very constructive meeting at St Tudy School last night. Parents and residents met representatives of Cornwall Council and the Diocese (although the Portfolio Holder was not present) and, although it is still pretty clear which direction those two bodies want to push this issue, there were at least signs that some meaningful dialogue might be possible. It was also officially revealed, as I posted here a month ago, that the Longstone site has been ruled out as a potential location for a new school due to insurmountable planning issues.

Perhaps the most extraordinary revelation at the meeting was that the Diocese had not even explored the possibility of using the money earmarked for a new school at St Tudy to upgrade the existing facility. A cynic might conclude that they already had a firm alternative plan in mind…

So let’s hope that last night’s meeting in St Tudy (and tonight’s in St Mabyn) mark the start of a meaningful conversation between the Council, the Diocese and the two villages - after the resounding referendum result there can be no doubt that St Mabyn and St Tudy are in very fine voice.

The campaign to save the village schools at St Mabyn and St Tudy continues in the face of further misdirection and sleight of hand from Cornwall Council and the Church of England. The latest edition of the newsletter from the ‘Hands Off Our Schools‘ campaign can be read here and there are two public meetings this week in which the future of the schools will be discussed. These meetings have been arranged by the Council and the Diocese and represent a welcome, if long overdue, attempt to engage in some meaningful discussion with the two communities. The details are:

Monday 30th November - 7pm at St Tudy School (Parents’ session at 6pm)

Tuesday 1st December - 7pm at St Mabyn School (Parents’ session at 6pm)

I hope that these meetings will be taken seriously by the Council and the Diocese and that they will actually listen to what the local residents are saying - but I’m not holding my breath.

Rumours are swirling around that the Tory-led administration at County Hall are planning a ‘re-organisation’ of the delivery of localism in Cornwall, which may well call into question how serious they are about this most important area of the Council’s work.

Localism is vital to the way the Council engages with communities and the behind-closed-doors decision making process on this demonstrates that, yet again, the new Tory-led administration have failed to understand the importance of discussion and communication. Sadly it would appear that this is becoming something of a recurring theme (see previous posts) with the Cabinet seemingly believing it is beyond scrutiny and that the way to do business is to make decisions behind closed doors without any sort of contact with the outside world.

This latest development on localism (following on from the long-winded and ultimately fruitless assault on the Network Panels) is deeply worrying. I’m very aware that many people had grave misgivings about Cornwall’s switch to unitary, particularly in the area of the loss of the District Councils and their closer links with communities. However, one of the strengths of the ‘One Cornwall’ bid was the Localism Agenda and the creation of the Community Network areas which set out to ensure that links between local areas and the Council were as strong as they had been before, if not stronger. If the new administration is setting about dismantling this then what are their proposals to stay in touch with local areas?

In this part of Cornwall we have already seen the Cabinet’s remote, high-handed attitude to dealing with the issues of potential school closures and the sale of local assets for short-term gain. This bunker mentality would perhaps be more understandable if (like the national government) this was a tired administration nearing the end of its time, but these people have only been in charge for five months. It doesn’t bode well for the next three and a half years.

Here is the link to Issue 2 of the ‘Hands Off Our Schools’ newsletter.

Last Friday evening (30th October) there was a public meeting in Wadebridge Town hall to discuss the future of the former NCDC offices at Higher Trenant on the outskirts of Wadebridge (although in Egloshayle Parish). As you may have seen from this week’s Cornish Guardian, the meeting was well attended (approximately 200 people in the hall) and we heard a variety of speakers, most notably from my point of view Nigel Eadie from Tavistock Chamber of Commerce, Charmian Larke from Transition Towns and local heroine Harriet Henderson, a trader in Wadebridge. There was a lively debate with many contributions from the floor and the feeling of the meeting was very much against further supermarket development in the area, although I fully accept that those broadly in support may not have wished to venture out on a rainy night.

Part of the meeting was captured here by the excellent Cornwall Information website.

Don’t forget, a public meeting is being held tonight (Friday 30th October) at 7pm in Wadebridge Town Hall to discuss Cornwall Council’s plans for the former NCDC offices at Higher Trenant (see previous post). All are welcome and the speakers will include:

Elliot Osbourne, Mayor of Wadebridge
Grenville Stanbury, Wadebridge Chamber of Commerce
Harriet Henderson, Local Trader
Nigel Eadie, Chairman of Tavistock Chamber of Commerce
Charmian Larke, Atlantic Energy
Scott Mann, Cornwall Councillor for Wadebridge West
Jeremy Rowe, Cornwall Councillor for St Issey
Cornwall Council (representative to be confirmed)

The meeting will be chaired by Dan Rogerson MP and contributions to the debate will, of course, be welcome from all.

It appears Cornwall Council and the Diocese are backing away from the proposed Longstone site for a new merged school for St Mabyn and St Tudy as it becomes clearer that planning permission would not be granted. I understand that other sites are still being assessed in the area, so the issue of a merged school is still live, but I would welcome the removal of this dangerous site from their plans.

None of this has been officially confirmed yet but I will post more details as and when I receive them.

Earlier this year Sainsbury’s approached North Cornwall District Council with an offer to purchase the offices at Higher Trenant. Apparently initial contact with the council was encouraging for the supermarket chain, and the proposed sale went to Full Council with a recommendation for approval. After a pretty good debate we narrowly voted to reject the offer. However, with the seven councils in Cornwall fast approaching the switch to unitary status, Sainsbury’s decided to try their luck with Cornwall County Council. (In fact, Sainsbury’s had been in discussion with Cornwall County Council before this came to the vote at NCDC - I know because I was shown the papers!)The County Council (now Cornwall Council) has said very little on this matter beyond a broad statement to the effect that they have received an offer from Sainsbury’s but that there have been no further discussions. Nevertheless Sainsbury’s seem to have drawn some encouragement from somewhere because they have drawn up plans for the site and taken the step of launching a public relations campaign, including a recent exhibition in Wadebridge. Despite the Council’s assertion that no further discussions have taken place, and despite the clear earlier involvement of the County Council, Sainsbury’s representatives at that exhibition were freely stating that they were in continued negotiations with the local authority. Someone is clearly mistaken here…

So, assuming there’s an offer and assuming it’s a good one, what’s the problem with the Council cashing in? There are a few issues here, and they tend to broaden the more you examine them.

The first is the effect on the market town of Wadebridge. As this link shows, the town currently boasts a diverse selection of independent shops and businesses which would all surely come under threat if a new supermarket was to be built just outside the town. This has been demonstrated in so many other previously thriving towns across the country. Would Wadebridge still be able to support two butchers, a greengrocers, two bakeries, two newsagents and all the other ‘niche’ businesses in town?

Some may question why it matters how these services are provided. If a new supermarket offers most of the things currently available in town, then what’s the problem? And wouldn’t a new Sainsbury’s provide many new jobs? This is where the deeper effects of any development start to become clear. Currently the (mostly locally-owned) businesses will spend their profits in the local area and many of them will source their produce locally. Supermarkets, on the other hand, will source their goods from whichever providers offer them the best profit margins, and those profits won’t find their way into the local economy - they will go to out of county shareholders. As for the jobs question, there may be a short-term gain but many of these jobs will be temporary and part-time, and most independent research shows that these kinds of developments normally result in a net loss of jobs for the local area once the wider effect on local traders and suppliers is taken into account.

The other aspect of this is the provision of local government services in the North Cornwall area. I supported the change to unitary for Cornwall, but I did this on the basis that services would not be centralised at County Hall. Unfortunately the new administration seem to see this centralisation as a great opportunity to cut short-term costs regardless of the wider effects on the economy. Higher Trenant is one of the best purpose-built facilities in the new Cornwall Council’s portfolio, and there is a golden opportunity for the new Council to prove its commitment to localism by retaining this building and continuing to provide services to the North Cornwall area.

Here is a short piece I wrote for another publication about the first few months of the new Tory/Independent administration at Cornwall Council:

I suppose the kindest thing you could say would be that they might get the hang of it eventually, but the new Tory-led administration at County Hall has not exactly hit the ground running. The first few months have been characterised by a lack of direction (their ‘manifesto’ contained no policies) and fear of decision-making (which is why officers are currently running the Council).

Liberal Democrats have given the administration two golden opportunities at Full Council to move things forward for everyone in Cornwall. The first was our motion to freeze Councillors’ allowances for the lifetime of the Council. However, the Tories and most of the Independents decided to hide behind a ‘review’ of allowances which will, as it always has done in the past, surely recommend an increase at a time when people in Cornwall are feeling the cold bite of the recession.

The second open goal they missed was the chance to sign up to the ‘10:10 Declaration’. This is a commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 10% by the end of 2010 - no doubt challenging, but it seems strange that the Tories didn’t even want to try. So much for ‘Vote Blue, Go Green’.

Liberal Democrats will continue to push a fair agenda at County Hall - the next step is our motion to help traders by reducing parking charges to 10p for the first hour in Cornwall’s market towns. But don’t be too surprised if the Tories decide that real help for independent Cornish businesses is yet another decision to be ducked.

It seems that Sally Bain, Cornwall Council’s Conservative Cabinet Member for Children, has finally decided to become involved with the proposed closures of St Mabyn and St Tudy schools.

Unfortunately her intervention is misjudged, ill-informed and primarily concerned with the media management of the story. Here is the (unedited) letter she wrote to the Cornish Guardian:

Mischief Making

Dear Sir

I am extremely concerned by the article which appeared on the front page of the Bodmin edition of the Cornish Guardian which opens with the sentence ‘the potential closure of two village primary schools…’.

This is an extremely misleading statement which appears specifically designed to worry children, parents and the local community. Although the reporter spoke at length to the Headteacher of one of the two schools and was, therefore, well aware of the true facts of this situation, the paper chose instead to use scare mongering tactics instigated by the local councillor and MP – both of whom were also aware of the facts. 

The facts are that the while discussions have been taking place with the Governors and Headteachers of both schools over the past twelve months on the possible federation of the schools under one Headteacher – there are absolutely no plans in place to close the schools.  All that is happening is that a feasibility study is currently taking place to look into the possibility of building a new school in the area in the future.  The results of the study, which is not expected for a number of weeks, will need to be considered by everyone involved before any final decision is made. 

Our aim is to provide the best possible quality of education for children in St Tudy and St Mabyn in the best possible buildings and it would be wrong of the Council not to look at every available option to help us achieve this aim.  However no decisions have been made with regard to new school buildings and all parents and carers will be closely involved in all discussions on the future of the schools well in advance of any decision as to the best outcome for the communities.

The Council gave the facts on the discussions that are on going with Governors and Head teachers from both schools to Jeremy Rowe, who brought this to the attention of the newspaper.  While the first half of the article is factually correct, it is totally wrong of both Mr Rowe and MP Dan Rogerson to attempt to stir up panic amongst parents when no decisions have been made.

Sally Bain CC

Cabinet Member for Children

And here is the short statement I gave to the Cornish Guardian when they asked for my response:

“I am astonished at Mrs Bain’s bizarre, ill-informed claims. In her comments she tries to give the impression that I was fully informed about the proposed closures at all times. This is completely untrue. I was given no prior notification or information of any kind from Cornwall Council until I made enquiries on the back of questions from concerned residents and the Cornish Guardian. In fact, I am not even quoted in the Guardian article which she claims I stirred up. Rather than concentrate on their public relations defence tactics, it would be a much better use of Mrs Bain’s and Cornwall Council’s time if they started actually listening to the local communities they’re trying to dictate to rather than simply ploughing ahead with their “we know best” approach.”

Now, on a personal level I like Sally Bain, so it is not my intention to become embroiled in a slanging match with her or anyone else. But it simply will not do for her (presumably under the advice of Council officers) to attack me or Dan Rogerson for simply responding to local residents’ wishes that their views be heard. Contrary to her claims, I did not approach the Cornish Guardian - in fact, they approached me as they had been made aware of local concerns, and I received no information of any kind from Cornwall Council until I pursued the matter after a local resident had raised it with me (see earlier post). Mrs Bain’s letter is confused and contradictory (she says there are no plans to close the schools and then goes on to talk about the plans to close the schools) and does nothing to address the concerns of parents and residents. The lesson Sally and her officers need to learn quickly is that it is time to stop worrying about the tone of the press coverage, and time to start listening to the people of St Mabyn and St Tudy.

As you may have heard, the Tory-led administration at County Hall has, along with the Diocese, cooked up a mad plan to close two much-loved rural primary schools and replace them with a single facility situated at a notorious accident blackspot. St Mabyn and St Tudy schools face the threat of closure with a site near the old Longstone Garage earmarked as the one-size-fits-all substitute. (See the Cornish Guardian’s coverage here)

These proposals are deeply flawed for a number of reasons. Firstly, and principally, there appears to have been very little meaningful engagement with the local communities over this issue. Time and again residents have spoken to me about ‘a fait accompli’ and ‘a done deal’ and the level of cynicism around ‘consultation’ is so high as to leave local people feeling highly suspicious about the whole process. The two affected communities need to enjoy a proper, meaningful engagement safe in the knowledge that if they say ‘no’ the proposals will not progress. If this is not the case there seems to be no point in opening the proposals up for consultation after Cornwall Council’s Cabinet decides on this later in the year.

The second problem is around the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach which appears to be at work here. St Mabyn and St Tudy schools both have very different situations which won’t necessarily benefit from the same approach. In the case of St Tudy the current premises are sadly not really up to modern standards, and the disappointment was widespread when the proposals for a new school there were not able to be progressed. That said, had the original proposals for St Tudy been successful it would seem highly unlikely that either Cornwall Council or the Church of England would be looking to relocate St Mabyn School, which had previously not entered into the discussions. Given the amount of land in the area already owned by the Church, and the funding which is still earmarked for a new school, have the Council and the Diocese really exhausted all the options for St Tudy?

The third point relates to the changing nature of the communities served by the schools. Outline planning permission has already been given to a development of 35 houses in St Mabyn with more likely to follow. These kinds of developments adjacent to rural villages will become ever more common as the Local Authority strives to keep up with the demands of the Regional Spatial Strategy and, as with the Midas development at St Mabyn, there will continue to be a requirement for a percentage of affordable local needs housing. This element of any development will, by its very nature, contain a significant number of young families which would make the decision to remove primary school provision from these villages seem a very short-sighted one.

The fourth aspect is the effect these proposals would have on community life in the two villages. St Mabyn and St Tudy are both very fortunate to still have a post office and a pub in each village, but all the evidence shows that the removal of the local primary school is often the first step in the decline of a local community. As a parent of small children I see at first hand that local primary schools are a natural environment for parents and families to interact with each other, thereby strengthening the sense of community. Rural villages that have lost their schools often become more inward-looking and local community facilities, such as a pub or post office, are often the next things to go as people’s lives retreat behind their own four walls.

The final point is around the proposed location of the new combined facility. The area at Longstone is a notoriously dangerous stretch of road. Even with the inclusion of a Travel Plan within any proposal I find it very hard to believe that there won’t be a reduction in the number of pupils cycling or walking to and from school. It is difficult to see how this fits with the Council’s declared aims on environmental impact and health & well-being, not to mention the basic safety issues that this site would throw up.

The good news is that the villages of St Mabyn and St Tudy have a strong sense of community and are willing to fight to protect their schools. They are happy with the education their children receive, which is a testament to the work that the teachers and governors have put in over the years, and they want that work to continue. Cornwall Council, you have been warned…

(See also St Mabyn Village News)