Christmas Lights & More

I was interviewed live (when I say live it was 7:30 am so marginal) on Radio  Cornwall about Christmas Lights in Penzance yesterday morning, and prior to the interview I spoke with one of the assistants, who asked me a series of questions I think as a bit of a trial run,  one of which was ‘how can you justify spending £18,000, as Penzance does, when there are cuts to social services etc', well first thing the town does not have responsibility for the areas that the question was implying, but that was not the point, so I gave the question a little more though and this is what I came up with:

All government be it national, regional or town & parish has only one job to do, and that is to make life better for people, quite simple really, this is achieved in a verity of ways, at a national level we have a National Health Service no one would argue that this makes peoples life better, the Police Force this makes life better for the vast majority, welfare, state pension, road & rail network and so on.

At a regional level its Social services, local roads, fire service, schools, planning waste disposal etc.

At a town & Parish level it’s different again, we do not have to supply any big services in fact we have no statuary duties to do anything, so the small amount of money that we have is used to truly make life better for people, here in Penzance we run a Park with children’s play area, an Art Gallery, skateboard park, we support The Golowan Festival and many others, we run allotments, we organise events or assist others with theirs and we help with Christmas Lights. All things that directly make life better for different groups within the community.

So, why all the arguments?

I think it’s because a lot of Councillors and MP’s have forgotten the reason they are there, to make life better for people, we currently have a financial crisis, and cuts have to be made we are told, so look at what you are doing apply the test is this making life better for people, do all levels of government at this time, need to be spending millions on peripheral things, that would be nice to have or would benefit few, but are not making peoples life’s better? That’s not to say they cannot be done at a future date, its just now is not the time.

So to end Penzance will have Christmas Lights, not just because the town Council is paying but because of all the volunteers in Mousehole & Newlyn who do a brilliant job in raising the money for the lights in those parts of the parish, to the traders in Causewayhead who pay for the lights in that part of the town and this year the Town Council are organising a big event for the switch on Saturday 26^th November from 11 am – 6.30 pm, we will have Bands, Choirs, Christmas Craft and Produce Market, Lantern Making and lots, lots more, because it makes life a little better for people.

Tesco's and Sainsbury’s

In the council chamber at the Tory led Cornwall Council today the outcome of two planning applications were heard by the Strategic Planning Committee with two different outcomes.

Tesco's  were applying to extend their store in Penzance, Tesco's have to some extent fallen foul of their own success, in that when they built the store they underestimated  the popularity of the store and now need to extend, I’m sure also that they have an eye over their shoulder at the Sainsbury application, currently Tesco's are limited to the range of goods they can sell at the store, being restricted pretty much to foodstuffs, expanding would enable them to increase the range of other goods on sale (more on this later), the problem for Tescos is that the only way to expand was onto a greenfield site Ponsandane field. Penzance Town Council had voted against the application. Greenfield site building by supermarkets is always going to be a hard one to win and in due course the application was refused.

Sainsbury’s application was different, a new store on a brown field site, (I know the heliport is actually a green field) so the issues on this application are different, it may come as a surprise to some people (including a few councillors) but building a new supermarket next to an existing one are not grounds to turn down an application, that’s a commercial decision for the applicant, the main point of discussion was what the store would sell, what! you may be thinking, but what the store intends to sell is very important as it will affect its impact on town centre shopping and this may well be grounds for refusal, as mentioned above Tesco’s range of goods is restricted by size, this will not be the case with Sainsbury’s,  and they wish to have a 60/40 split, that’s 60% of floor space given over to food retailing and 40% to other goods, its these other goods that have the most impact on town centres, there was a lot of discussion over the numbers with Cllr Andrew Wallis, Helston South & Porthleven, http://cllrandrewwallis.blogspot.com/, determined to get the number down to 80 – 20 which would be a very good result for the town centre, at one point asking the Sainsbury’s rep if he would be happy to lose the application by not going to this 80 – 20 split, this rather took the wind out of the rep’s sails, in the end saying he could not answer. Another area for debate was the Section 106 agreement (or planning gain) this is something negotiated with the applicant to offset their impact on the location they are building in, this had been negotiated with the applicant by officers at the Tory led Cornwall Council without any consultation with the Town Council, the information of the detail only being available to the Town Council the day before the meeting, it so happened that the town, by good luck, had a planning meeting that night, voting in favour of the application, but voicing concerns over the fact that 85% of the planning gain in value was going into a roundabout (to allow access to the store) and other highways work, not a lot of gain for the town in that. The town decided to send a member to the meeting to voice these concerns and Cllr John Pender did a very good job in presenting the towns position.

A lot of quite honestly in places poor debate followed, the problem with a single council is that a committee like this one, has many members who have very little if any knowledge of the town they are making decisions  about, after 4 hours debating the two applications, Cllr Wallis proposed that the application be approved on the condition that Sainsbury’s hold discussions with the Town Council regarding the food retail split and the section 106 agreement, before the Officers had a chance to realise what was happening the resolution was passed.

Now I should say at this point that the town council was also so surprised that we have asked for a copy of the precise resolution, because if it is as detailed above it’s a landmark decision, giving the power to the town council to negotiate directly with the applicant on two very important issues, something that the towns have never had a chance to do.

I look forward to the trail of Cornwall Council officers from planning, highways and legal making their way to Penzance Town Council to watch as the Town negotiate. This will be localism in action, but not I expect as the Tory led Cornwall Council and its officers ever imagined.  

Thank you Cllr A Wallis, you may have just made a precedent that will give localism its true meaning.

Toilets Part 2

As feared the Tory lead Cornwall Council Environment and Economy Overview and Scrutiny Committee today voted to recommend to the Cabinet that those toilets recommended for closure should be closed.

Penzance will lose the following:

Penzance Penalverne

Penzance Clarence Street (St Clare)

Penzance South Pier

Penzance Superloos (Bus Station, Railway Station & Harbour Car Park)

Penzance Newlyn Fore Street

Penzance Morrab Gardens

Penzance Wherry Town

Penzance Mousehole Harbour

But this by no means the end of the story, the document produced by the working group also states:

‘This would potentially allow the remaining 134 public conveniences to stay open, if they were all managed and operated by Town & Parish Councils.’

So if the town & parish councils refuse to manage and operate the remaining toilets these will also be closed. The Tory lead Cornwall Council will then wheel out its media machine to ensure that Town & Parish Councils get the blame and not them.

Throughout the document produced by the Tory lead Cornwall Council its plagued with inconsistencies:

‘ If a Town or Parish wishes to take over a toilet or toilets then

there is possibly a TUPE situation and the Town or Parish Council

will need to take the current operative over.’

This means that if there is a cleaning contract in place the Town or Parish will have to continue with that contact.

‘It is estimated that Town and Parish Councils cleaning costs would be significantly lower than those incurred by Cornwall Council.’

These two do not seem to go together, and wasn’t the reason to create the Tory led Cornwall Council in the first place ‘The savings of scale the new council will bring’.

‘There is no statutory obligation for Cornwall Council to provide public conveniences’

This is true, but there is also no statutory duty to: Run an airport, give £50,000 to Plymouth's bid to host world cup games, set up a solar power farm, PR, web casting, stadium for Cornwall et al

Already protest groups are gearing up to fight the closures, but please, please remember it’s not your Town and Parish Councils it’s the Tory lead Cornwall Council.

p.s. You may not want to visit a beach in St Ives next summer, they have lost all their beach toilets.

Toilets

Toilets, after dogs, the one subject area that as a councillor I try to steer well clear of, but the plans of the Tory led Cornwall Council to close the majority of public toilets in Penzance will be moving this most contentious of areas to the top of the political agenda for some little while I fancy.

This could well turn the Battle of Battery Rock into nothing but a small skirmish, in the Tory led Cornwall Councils flapping around to cut as many services as it feels it can get away with, this could well be the one that will be remembered and lead to their downfall.

In Penzance the plan is to close EIGHT (8), yes you read that correctly, they plan to close 8 public toilets, this number is only matched by St Ives with 7, it makes you wonder what we have done to upset them.

As a comparison our capital Truro 4, the largest town in Cornwall St Austell 1, Camborne, Redruth And Pool  3 between them, Falmouth 1. In total the plan is to close 114 of the 248 public toilets in Cornwall. I’m so pleased we are all in this together, but even more so in the west.

I will not list here the full list but one that I will comment on the one listed as ‘Superloos’, to those not familiar with Penzance these are the toilets in the block at the Bus Station, Railway Station and Harbour Car Park also known as ‘The Transport Interchange’, right next door to the abandoned Tourist Information Office closed by the Tory Led Cornwall Council, so whether you come to Penzance by Train, Bus or Car you will be welcomed, well actually you won’t be, by closed toilets and  Tourist Information Office.  

The Tory led Cornwall Council hopes that the towns and parishes will take over the running of the toilets proposed to be closed, on the figures listed by the Tory led Cornwall Council without cleaning costs, the cost to Penzance Town Council would be £87,527.91 now that would really blow a very large hole in the towns (in comparison with the Tory led Cornwall Councils) budget or we would have to raise the council tax, but you have already paid for this service once to the Tory led Cornwall Council, so in effect you would be paying twice, the same applies to even the smallest parish council losing the only public toilet in the village, the cost to them will still be a very high proportion of their budget, I’m so pleased we are all in this together.

I’m sure I will be writing about this again, until then keep them crossed.

Lies, Damn Lies and a failure to understand.

I like numbers, you can do a lot with numbers but if you don’t do it properly they will make you look silly.

‘Every Little Helps’

In a local supermarket, which shall remain nameless as they all do the same, a pack of Ham which a few weeks back cost £1.98 is today still £1.98, no change there then but if you look at the pack and have a good memory you will see that a few weeks ago it weighed 142g and this week it weighed 132g in fact 7.5% less for your money,

A national news headline in September

‘Almost 400 job vacancies advertised by Jobcentre Plus go unfilled in Penzance the second highest total in four years.’

Not quite the full story. I went straight to the website for Job Centre Plus Penzance where only 280 jobs are listed, of these 91 are classed as regional including Bristol, the Midlands and North East. 44 are temporary, 2 self employed, of the remaining 131 only 54 are full time.

“A lost generation”

The grim stats are that about 750,000 18-24 year olds are unemployed, a rate of about 18%.

But on raw numbers, the 1990s were higher despite a smaller population. Fact.

Was that also a lost generation?

The youth unemployment rate is higher now. But the rate is not the unemployed share of all youths. It's the unemployed share of youths excluding those in education or otherwise unavailable for work.

So, oddly, if more go into education, the rate goes up, since the unemployed are a bigger fraction of the smaller number that remains. On raw numbers the 70s, 80s, & 90s where worst.