Thursday 15 September 2011

Meeting - September 2011

The Falmouth Visitor Information Centre (VIC) This is now open and operating successfully. This replaced the former Tourist Information Centre.

350th Anniversary of the Falmouth Charter
5 October is ‘Falmouth Day’ – the 350th anniversary of the granting of the Charter which created the town of Falmouth. An ambitious programme of activities is planned (see www.falmouth,co.uk). The Falmouth Art Gallery, the Poly and the Maritime Museum were all planning associated exhibitions. The Forum is contributing a new version of the Charter: something aspirational for the next 50 years.

Seaside Towns funding
The bid for £75k from the Seaside Town scheme has been produced by the BID with help from Cornwall Marine Network and others. The proposal will involve new signage and visitor management schemes in the two towns. The result of the bid will be known in late October. The Forum has contributed its ‘signage’ reserve of £3k towards this project.

Port Masterplan
The Masterplan has been approved by Cornwall Council Cabinet and work is going ahead on the development of bids for Convergence funding. There is some urgency here as the Convergence window of opportunity is closing.

As far as dredging is concerned, active lobbying was continuing. The recent announcements about marine conservation areas appeared restrictive with a ‘reference’ area having been unexpectedly identified for the St Mawes bank. A test project on the re-location of marl would be carried out shortly.

A second project is emerging: to do a similar, but simpler, study on the rest of the Penryn river, to assess the strategy for the water and adjoining land usage. This will be funded by Convergence. A project team is meeting on 29 September to work out a brief. 

Connecting Cornwall 2011 – 2105 Implementation Plan
The CC Transport Department has published the Implementation Plan for the next five years. No major schemes are planned for Falmouth and Penryn but there may be elements hidden away in the ‘general’ categories. CC has promised an analysis of the projects associated with the two towns.

Falmouth and Penryn, have been selected as one of two a ‘Cycling Demonstration Towns’ in the county. This was something of a surprise since the Forum’s response to the consultation had pointed out the cycling-unfriendliness (steepness) of the hills. We await further details.

Church Street car park
The land under the car park is contaminated which is a significant barrier to re-development.

The results of the survey carried out by CC into the usage and attitudes towards this car park are still awaited (promised for November 2010). A separate proposal for a partial re-landscaping and re-arrangement of the car park with associated pricing changes at the Quarry, was welcomed. It suggested that a walkway could be created for the loss of only about a dozen spaces and recommended a pay-on-exit scheme. Its proponents were encouraged to be bold in their ambitions. The ideas would be going before the Falmouth Town Council to encourage them to adopt them as policy.

Local Development Framework
There had been much fuss in the newspapers recently about the ‘possibility’ that 4,000 new houses were to ‘be imposed’ on Falmouth and development would start with the pitch and putt course. Much of this coverage had been ill-informed and inaccurate.

CC Planners have been looking at possible expansion spaces around the town, for all sorts of uses: houses, schools, industry etc. In a careful study, they had identified a series of areas and looked at these from the point of view of such things as visual impact, accessibility, land usage, topography etc. Unfortunately discussions at the FTC Planning committee had brought this work into the public domain without any associated explanation.

A public consultation on the expansion options for the towns would take place in November. There are some who believe that expansion of the towns is inevitable given the need for housing (especially affordable)and the planned expansion of the university; others who refuse to accept this. The difficulty as always, will be in finding suitable sites which do not offend local sensitivities.

Discussions at a national level may influence this work. A revision of existing planning legislation will embody an ‘assumption in favour of development’. It will be interesting to see how this will impact the work of the Framework.

Meanwhile, the Civic Society was considering a revised version of Falmouth by Design, to help improve the quality of developments in the town.

Localism
CC has said that Falmouth is ‘not in the first wave’ for devolution of responsibility from CC to local bodies. The messages emerging from County Hall were very mixed. It was by no means clear whether devolution was simply a cost-cutting exercise, a shrugging-off of responsibility or a genuine desire to let go and allow local groups to run things themselves. It would be helpful if such questions could be clarified.

Locally, there was a considerable appetite to run everything, especially car parking, while the Town Council was focusing on management of its own building. Penryn was seeking to take back management of its own port.

The Sainsbury’s development
It appears that Sainsbury’s might be persuaded to make a significant ‘community benefit’ contribution to the town as part of a Section 106 agreement for the development of the site at Ponsharden. One estimate is that trade in the main street could drop by as much as 7% as a result of the new store.

FTC has already drawn up a list and is in discussion with CC Planning Control about possible projects. This list includes one-off expenditures, support for community projects and support for individual posts. The need for the money to be spent sustainably was emphasised with a possible model being an annual contribution based on something like the usage of car parking spaces alongside the superstore.

The Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP)
The LEP had been tasked with developing a single Economic Strategy for Cornwall. This was now the focus of their work. They were also convening a business stakeholder group.

Education developments
Falmouth Marine School had just spent £200k on refurbishments and had around 300 students aged 16-18, 50% of them coming from outside the county. They were developing their research threads with the aim of working towards HE accreditation.

The CUC building developments were advancing well with the Tremough Innovation Centre (TIC) and the Academy for Innovation and Research (AIR) due for opening in Spring 2012. Tremough has also been spending money on re-painting and reviving its existing buildings. There are now some 4,000 students at Tremough and 800 at Wood Lane (UCF).

Shorts
The Falmouth Progress School was designed for small businesses, offering 2 hours a month self-directed business-helps-business support. More details from Andy Coote.

Falmouth Business Breakfasts take place every Thursday at 07:30. £8 a head for a cracking breakfast and inspiring speaker

Source FM is now back on FM 96.1 and covers local business matters every Friday morning between 08:00 and 09:00

The Trescobeas play site re-opens on Saturday 17 September at midday. 

Those attending the meeting:
Mike Reynolds – A&P Docks
Sally Stiles – Falmouth Age Concern
Paul Wickes - Cornwall Marine Network
Dick Stiles - Civic Society
Richard Wilcox - Falmouth BID
Andy Coote - Falmouth Business Club
Jeremy Edwards - Falmouth Chamber of Commerce
John Langan – Falmouth Harbour Commissioners

David Stedman – Falmouth Marine School
Oliver Cramp – Falmouth Town Council
Mark Williams - Falmouth Town Council
Richard Gates – Falmouth Town Manager

Jonathan Griffin – National Maritime Museum Cornwall (Chairman)
Mike Jenks – Royal Cornwall Polytechnic

John Bottomley – Transport Working Group
Jilly Easterby – UCF,  University of Exeter and TCSG