Coinagehall Street redevelopment in Penzance

This morning I went to a meeting with the developers of the Old Vospers Garage (Coinagehall Street) site in Penzance, the meeting had been scheduled for sometime, and was a follow up to the public consultation held some 8 months ago. The main part of the site is publicly owned and has been a key site for development for a long time.

The development is being undertaken by a private company with private money, with the developer being the preferred bidder when Cornwall Council looked for interest in the site.

There have been some major changes in the plan since the public consultation, with the developers taking onboard many of the comments made at that consultation. The development will incorporate a 70 bedroom hotel, 50 flats and 7 retail/restaurant outlets, around a central open space. There will be parking for 94 cars under the building.  

Whilst I will wait for a full planning application before passing my own comments on the plans, they appear to be going in the right direction, on this very important site for redevelopment within Penzance.

Or I should say were, for the development to go ahead in its current form the developers would have to purchase 3 sites in private hands to bring the full development in. As is often the case the owners of these sites are keen to get the best price they can, pushing the developer to a price that cannot be justified, in these cases, a Compulsory Purchase Order can be made, and that looks to be the situation here. 

To that end a recommendation was put to the informal meeting of Cornwall Cabinet members yesterday morning, with officers recommending approval, at this point the cabinet turned down the development, not just the application for a CPO, citing the change to the streetscape of Coinagehall Street as the reason. I’m lead to believe that the cabinet was unanimous in this decision. That is it the end of this development.

Now I’ve been around politics long enough to know this seems very strange, for a start ‘unanimous’ against officers recommendation, if all ten were there, I would have expected 1 or 2 in favour at the very least.

Now I’ve only heard one side of a story and will try to find out the other. However, if what I’ve heard is a true reflection of the situation, then someone has been very busy briefing the Cabinet, against this major Penzance development, at County Hall. 

Damned if you do damned if you don’t.

This evening (13 June 2013) there is a meeting of the Penzance Town Council Planning Committee, this will be the second meeting of that committee since the elections, of the 10 members on the committee, 5 are new members, some of whom were very critical of the Town Council planning committee before being elected, regarding development and retail shops within the town.

Tonight the members have an interesting application to consider.

No PA13/02516  

Applicant: Mr P. Jemmett, 3 Hanover Square, London

Change of use from A1 to A5 (Retail to Takeaway) 1-2 Market Jew Street.

At first glance not too much to worry about, just a change of use, not even the full planning application.

Things the committee will have to consider:

Loss of retail space on the main street, 1-2 Market Jew Street use to be Curry’s Digital.

Bringing an empty shop back in to use.

Number of Takeaways already in the town centre. Is this one different? Hard to tell, as the application does not say what type of takeaway it’s to be. This application is only for change of use, the applicants address is a branch of Citibank.

If the committee decide not to object, they will be accused of:

Letting the town centre go to rack and ruin.

Letting too many takeaways open in the town.

Destroying the town centre.

Selling out to big business.

Turning the town centre into a clone town.

If the committee decide to object, they will be accused of:  

Letting the town centre go to rack and ruin.

Failing to encourage business.

Not caring about the town centre.

Destroying the town centre.

Not encouraging a big business into the town.

As the saying goes, damned if you do damned if you don’t.

St Johns Hall Penzance

There has been a lot written over the past week about Cornwall Councils £5.6 million investment in St Johns Hall in Penzance.

With headlines in the Cornishman veering from “Is £5.6m on hall a sensible spend?” to “Council Services and Iconic Building saved.

Now from the start I will state that I’m very pleased that money is being spent on St Johns Hall, it is an important building in Penzance and Grade 2 listed and has been much neglected for many years. The West Wing that has been owned by The Royal Geological Society of Cornwall being in a very poor condition.

The acoustics in the main concert hall are so bad that many groups will not appear there thus further undermining the viability of the Hall.

 It’s the spin that’s being put on this so called investment that really gets me down, Cornwall Council do nothing for nothing and as far as I know the building was not under ‘threat’ so probably did not need saving, some work yes, saving no.

 To get this ‘investment’ Cornwall Council will be selling its site at St Clare (the old Penwith Offices), York House a grade 2 listed building, the Library and the Registry Office.

The spin is that that offices are only worth £2m and require a lot of work and are ‘inefficient’ and so will be sold, but of course they will not be sold as a suite of offices requiring work, but as a development site along with York House that is also on the site, which will probably be converted into flats. The whole site is marked as a development site in the Cornwall Local Plan.

Cornwall Council can sell off these offices as over the past 4 years the staff numbers at St Clare have dropped from 450 to 190 with Cornwall Council transferring staff and jobs to offices in Camborne and Truro with many jobs also lost. This has ripped the heart out of the old offices, the remaining staff have to be housed somewhere and its cheaper to do this in a building you already own and will be required to do work to in the near future anyway.

But the old Penwith site is not just the offices on the site, it’s the site itself and it’s big and was last valued at £11m for Penwith District Council,

Add into this the value of the Registry Office, a large Georgian House with its own parking in the centre of the town, more flats?  The Library in Morrab Road will also be sold, there is already a buyer for this site, the building last valued at £1m, is being sold for £100,000 as there is a backlog of repairs. In addition there are all the other associated costs being saved, the selling off of 3 sites and moving all operations to one you already own brings considerable savings.

Add this altogether and I fancy it comes to a fair bit more than £5.6m, so I am  pleased that St Johns Hall is to be refurbished, but please don’t try to tell me you are doing it out of the goodness of your heart or as proof of investment in Penzance.

PS. Cornwall Council also wish to sell the Town Council Office, across the road and have the Town Council move into St Johns Hall, something I’m personally against, not wishing the Town Council and County to be even more connected in peoples minds.