Category: Cornwall

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“Planning policy should meet need, not greed”, says Cornish MP, as yet another development reneges on affordable housing and green space percentage

Editor-in-chief

Press release from Andrew George, MP for West Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly: The government’s announced planning policy risks putting “greed before need” and is “destined to fail”. Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, launched changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, which the government says will meet its ambitious housebuilding targets – one and […]

Planning: a system set up to fail?

Anthea Simmons

We’ve all seen them, haven’t we? The earth-shade painted, faux-timber-clad housing estates with their strips of fake grass, their crescents of executive homes in the best spots, and, overall, the dead, sterile look of a film set for the Stepford Wives. This pop-up townlet and its maze of little ‘streets’ boast dreamily bucolic names, often […]

MP condemns threat to Cornwall’s promised Women and Children’s Hospital

Editor-in-chief

News that the long-awaited Women and Children’s Hospital promised for Cornwall may never be built has been described as “shocking and disappointing” by St Ives Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George. The £291m project – part of the previous government’s New Hospital Programme (NHP) – aims to combine maternity, neonatal, paediatric and obstetric and gynaecology services […]

A Community Wealth fund for Cornwall?

Gavin Barker

Throughout last year, a small working group met under the aegis of Cornwall Independent Poverty Forum  to design a Community Wealth fund for Cornwall. This is a proposed £10 million  investment fund which will be used to invest in local businesses, community enterprises and university startups in a way that accelerates the transition to a […]

Your guide to the tactical vote to defeat the Conservative and push them into third place

Editor-in-chief

Just because the Conservatives are set to lose power nationally, they are still able to hang on to seats where the progressive vote is split and/or ambiguous, thanks to our anachronistic and undemocratic first-past-the-post system (shared only by Belarus…) Fortunately, we can turn to the big aggregator sites like www.stopthetories.vote and Best for Britain’s www.getvoting.org […]

How can we return to the heart of Europe?

Editor-in-chief

On Saturday 23 March 2024, Cornwall for Europe hosted Molly Scott Cato, a former Member of the European Parliament, at a meeting at Truro School. Over 50 local members of Cornwall for Europe heard Molly Scott Cato’s talk entitled The Journey Home: how can we return to the heart of Europe? Molly Scott Cato is […]

Freeports: what does it mean to live in a freeport or special economic zone and does it matter? Event TOMORROW live-streamed

Editor-in-chief

What exactly is ‘one of the largest economic development projects in the South Hams’ – and why has no-one heard much about it? Why did South Hams District Council enter into a legally binding agreement with multi-million pound risks and liabilities over a year ago without asking its tax-paying residents? Is anyone pulling the strings of […]

Freeports : a pathway to the end of government as we know it

Richard Murphy

I have been asked on here if I have ever looked at the benefits of freeports. The honest answer is no, but that is because I have never been able to find any such benefits. I have, however, looked at the massive downsides to this idea that both Sunak and Truss support. It is important […]

Climate conversation in Cornwall – if only Rishi Sunak had been listening

Tom Scott

The day before Rishi Sunak’s outstandingly dishonest Downing Street press conference on Wednesday, at which the Prime Minister announced his decision to junk key parts of the UK’s emission reduction efforts, a meeting of a very different kind took place in Cornwall Council’s main chamber in Truro. Convened by Climate & Ecological Emergency Cornwall, a […]

Conspiracy theorists awake – and are heading to a town near you

Tom Scott

When Russell Brand issued his pre-emptive denial in an attempt to get ahead of the horrendous allegations of rape and sexual assault aired by The Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches on Saturday, he addressed his 6.6 million YouTube subscribers with the words: “Hello there, you awakening wonders.” It’s Brand’s standard greeting to his followers and […]

Traffic reduction in coastal towns – a suggestion

Dr Richard Lawson

As a young man I took a holiday in the West Country in my van, carrying a small home-built sailing boat, looking for beaches and slipways from which to access the endless ocean. The map showed a slipway in one small town on a beautiful Cornish estuary, so I headed off the main road and […]

#NotJustTheTicket: save your ticket office! DEADLINE NOW 1 SEPTEMBER!

Anthea Simmons

The banks have gone, post offices are closing, your minor injuries unit might be shut, your library closed or desperately trying to hang in there and if you don’t have a smartphone you can’t park the car that is your lifeline because there’s no reliable bus service. Welcome to the real world of rural living, […]

Will Helston charity finally call time on a controversial project? UPDATE

Tom Scott

*** UPDATE *** Last month, we reported on the efforts of developers to push through the controversial Hospital Cross development on greenfield land on the outskirts of Helston, in the teeth of strong local opposition and after planning permission for the site had been turned down. Following a meeting of the Downsland Trust (the charity […]

A perfect day for a peaceful protest

Jane Leigh

Gyllyngvase Beach in Falmouth is renowned for sand, rockpools and clean water – at least that’s what the locals and tourists expect to find when they visit. In recent years, however, would-be paddlers and swimmers at Gylly have been met by the products of a nearby Combined Sewage Overflow (CSO). These include everything you’d expect […]

“From the Tamar to the sea, Cornwall will be fascist-free!”

Tom Scott

Anti-fascists, including large numbers of local people, gathered outside a hotel in Newquay this morning to stand up to a far-right campaign that’s stirring up fear and hatred of asylum-seekers. Tom Scott reports from the scene. It was a lovely, fresh spring morning in Cornwall today, more than making up the hour of lost sleep […]

26 Places in Cornwall / 26 Tyller yn Kernow

Tom Scott

A new book and touring exhibition takes visitors on a unique A–Z journey through Cornish places and their richly resonant names, in poetry and photography. Tom Scott writes about his involvement and the project’s objectives. Angarrack, Feock, Halliggye Fogou, Nancekuke, Ponsanooth, Zennor… What secrets of language, history and legend can Cornwall’s place names unlock? I’ve […]

Letters to Sheryll Murray MP on strikes, the NHS and nurses’ pay

Carl Garner

Dear Sheryll Murray You have often used the term “democracy” in your replies to me when challenged over your abysmal record as our MP – at least in the replies that weren’t just copied and pasted from the Ladybird book of lazy replies for MPs, at any rate.  But, do tell me, can you prove […]

Review of 2022 – part 1: most-read articles

Editor-in-chief
fireworks depicting 2022

Our top ten reads for 2022 in reverse order. In at number 10, but thankfully NOT one to have had a go at being in at Number 10 (ho, ho), it’s that delightful ERG-er and Brexiter Sherryl Murray: At 9, a still sadly relevant piece on the abandoning of the clinically vulnerable to Covid risks: […]

Take up your Pennon/South West Water shares!

Anthea Simmons

If you are a South West water customer, you should have received a letter offering a you a small sum of money or shares in South West Water’s parent company, Pennon Group. Being a shareholder gives you the right to attend the annual general meeting and ask questions of the board of directors. It is […]

Benefits on Trial: the calculated cruelty of the DWP

Neil Carpenter

Benefits on Trial is based on my work in Cornwall since 2012 as a volunteer advocate with adults who have a learning disability. In recent years, that work has increasingly concerned benefits cases: helping people with their applications for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA); accompanying them to assessments; requesting reconsideration […]

Be the change, be kind and carry on

Jane Leigh

College lecturer and former Plastic-Free Falmouth champion Kirstie Edwards is gearing up to take on the role of Mayor of Falmouth next year. West Country Voices spoke to her about her career to date and her plans for the future. Kirstie Edwards’s CV isn’t short on variety. Having made Falmouth her home at the age […]

Academics at Falmouth University say: enough is enough

Tom Scott

Lecturers started a three-day strike today against the use of a subsidiary company to hire staff outside national agreements that underwrite pension, pay and working conditions. This morning I was on a picket line at the entrance to Falmouth University as part of a three-strike with my fellow lecturers there. In the scheme of things, […]