Meeting - July 2010

Notes of the meeting of 7 July 2010. Any corrections or amendments to the chairman please.

The first few items were dominated by the changes taking place as a result of the new government and the impact of required or predicted budget cuts.

Cornwall Council
Things are still changing on a daily basis. The Council has a budget of £1.3bn was already committed to making £100m savings over four years and has added another £13.6m in the current year to this. The aim would be to protect front-line services. It was likely that further redundancies would be necessary to achieve savings.

The new Business Plan has been published. Although this pre-dates the election is sets out a strategy for the future. Cornwall Council Business Plan 

The government had announced that SWRDA was to be abolished and replaced with Local Economic Partnerships. Councillors did not want another quango and would like to take over control themselves, not combining with other counties.

The Falmouth Tourist Information Centre (TIC)
Visit Cornwall has said that there will be no money to support the TIC in the coming year and were looking for alternatives, preferably purchase by another body and transfer of staff. Options included the Library, the One Stop Shop, the Town Council, the BID (or equivalent) or a private sector body. There would be no money to support this. This was seen as typical of the sort of changes with which we would be faced as funding was cut and could lead to a loss of partnership working.

It was necessary to be clear about what we wanted out of a TIC. The service was never going to be a money-making venture and would need to be re-thought for the 21st century. Nigel Carpenter (VC Board member) would be leading the discussions. He was also seeking to protect the ca £300k that had formerly supported tourism in the town which was now being cut.

Convergence and the Strategic Investment Framework
The ‘rapid review’ was still going on. There was a real chance that, with the demise of SWRDA and other budget cuts, the necessary matched funding would disappear, limiting our ability to tap into European money.

Port Masterplan
A public consultation is to start shortly, probably with one preferred option, leading to the publication of the final plan at the end of September.

Church Street Car Park
The contamination report is still too secret to be put in the public domain but it is becoming increasingly clear from rumours that the site will never be a first grade development site because of the cost of repair of the land. An open space may be more realistic. As this is not formally ‘a project’ at Cornwall Council, no progress is being made, despite the priority given to it by the community as expressed through consultations and the Community Plan.

Local Transport Plan (LTP3)
Cornwall Council will be going out to consultation on the Local Transport Plan (LTP3) under the heading of ‘Connecting Cornwall 2030’ between 9 July and 17 September 2010. This document ‘sets out the transport vision and strategic proposals for transport in Cornwall for the next 20 years. The Community Network Managers will be supporting the consultation process by promoting Connecting Cornwall and the consultation questionnaire in their areas during the consultation period.

‘The document is the result of working closely with communities, stakeholders and members and takes into account the contents of the Parish and Community Plans and also the more recent Community Network consultation meetings that were held throughout the County to feed into the Local Development Framework (LDF) and Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS) review.

‘Further consultation on the LDF and SCS strategic documents will be taking place over the next twelve months. Connecting Cornwall plays a major role in supporting each of these strategies. We are working closely together throughout the development of all of these strategies to ensure a joined up vision for Cornwall in 2030.’

Other Regeneration Projects
A very helpful list of current projects had been produced by the Council’s Economic Development Service. While the Forum did not agree with some of the content, or sense of priorities, it was good to see such openness. Copies may be obtained from the chairman.

Bid and Town Manager updates
The new Falmouth website is progressing well and will be going live at the end of August, replacing VisitCornwall’s Discover Falmouth site using www.Falmouth.co.uk, by kind permission of the Forum. There will be a need to manage the relationship with other town websites with care.

The Falmouth brand is now available. Brand guidelines have been produced to explain its use.

Regular communication is taking place with stakeholders, despite the difficulty of reaching some people who do not have emails addresses. The BID AGM will be held on 20 September.

A national PR campaign is planned and an agency has been appointed to manage this.

The Shopper Bag is being funded by the BID to support the Falmouth discount card. The new bags will carry the new brand.

Floral displays, bunting and flags were now appearing in the main street. There were some problems with the furling of the flags but the place was looking much better as a result.

The empty Woolworth’s shop had been decorated with hoardings bearing the Falmouth brand. This had greatly improved the look of the main street. Another quick-fix option was being explored for other shops.

Work was progressing on a signage project in conjunction with Cornwall Council, attracting possible funding from Convergence.

Henri Lloyd Falmouth Week printed programmes have been delivered . More details are available on the website and Facebook/twitter pages.

The BID is aiming to help stimulate an active events programme, in particular a Spring Garden Festival for 2011.

Four new electric scooters and six wheelchairs, one power assisted, with bearing Falmouth branding are being delivered shortly.

The mural at Church Street Car Park is almost finished, Tragos have donated the paint and the artist has done this free of charge.

Richard Gates is making enquiries with Cornwall Council about what action can be taken with the Admiral Nelson derelict pub because of the poor impression it gives to the town. He has also persuaded the owners of the old Moorfield Motors site near the marina to clear a lot of the overgrowth.

The hoardings at Ponsharden, we were going to do some work with the schools to decorate them and have agreement but partially due to the communications with the landowner they have starting clearing up the site. We are waiting to hear if the remaining hoarding’s will be removed or not. If they are not then we will improve them in the future.

Community Alive
The event on 2 May had been a great success with over 180 people active on the day feeding, informing, and entertaining he public and each other for free. A report can be found here

All community groups in the area are encouraged to join the website either or with links to their own sites or by creating a page of their own.

Those attending the meeting:
Dick Styles - Civic Society
Mike Varney – Cornwall Council
Roger Radcliffe – Cornwall Council
Pam Faulkner – Falmouth and District Hotels Association
David Pollard – Falmouth Ambassadors
Richard Wilcox – Falmouth BID
Oliver Cramp – Falmouth Town Council
John Bottomley
Jonathan Griffin – National Maritime Museum Cornwall
Jilly Easterby – UCF