Cornwall Council had recently launched a consultation on the cuts necessary to achieve a balanced budget. £196m needed to be cut. The details were set out in a 160-page document available on the Council website.
It was difficult to drill down very far as the figures were very much at summary level but the implications were pretty daunting. Although things like charging for on-street parking were inevitably getting the headlines other far-reaching areas, like social care, were going to be hit very hard.The loss of Visit Cornwall and the devolution of activities to local councils was noted as having a major impact on Falmouth. Well-handled, the devolution could bring a useful local input to the provision of services but only if these were properly resourced.
Cornwall Council was inviting comments. There is an on-line form to submit comments on their website and a series of consultation sessions is planned. The Falmouth one would take place in the Town Council building at 4:00 on 21 October. The Council Cabinet would be discussing the budget on 5 November and the full Council would endorse the final budget on 22 November.
It was difficult to see what could be done about such swingeing cuts, especially as the detail was so unclear. The meeting agreed that the priorities should be to support the Town Council in making sure that additional services were not foisted onto them without matching resources and that the very successful town team should continue to be supported.
Possible Neighbourhood Plan and Article 4 Direction for Falmouth
A useful meeting had been held with representatives of Cornwall Council to discuss the possibility of producing a Neighbourhood Plan and the overlap between this and the suggestion of an Article 4 Direction to put controls on the number of houses in multiple occupancy (HMOs) in the town.
There was hierarchy of plans. What had been known as the Cornwall Core Strategy had changed into the Local Plan. This covered Cornwall as a whole. Alongside this, an extensive piece of work had been done identifying sites in and around Falmouth and Penryn which might be used to accommodate the agreed level of growth. This had been called the Local Development Framework but was now seen as part of a suite of Local Development Documents. The identified sites were included in an Allocation Development Plan Document (or Allocation DPD).
The Allocation DPD was being revised to take into account the revised housing allocation target for the Falmouth and Penryn area agreed by Cornwall Councillors.
A Neighbourhood Plan (NP) would fit in beneath these.
The boundaries of the NP would be fairly critical. The Community Plan had covered Falmouth and Penryn as a whole. The Allocation DPD covered a slightly wider area which included some of the neighbouring parishes who had been invited to participate in its production. However, it was clear that some of the local parishes might be reluctant to fund an NP, let alone be enthusiastic about absorbing a large share of the green-field development, and the current view in the Town Council was that the NP boundary should be drawn in a more limited way, perhaps only covering the boundaries of Falmouth.
The proposal for an Article 4 Direction might cover only a limited area in the town. One idea was that this area could form the basis of a much more limited NP, thus saving the cost of running two consultation processes. There was a problem with this, however: an Article 4 Direction was essentially about preventing development while an NP was about facilitating development. A geographically-limited NP would struggle to find development sites in the middle of town.
The discussion highlighted a preference for a much wider area for the NP, preferably including Penryn, rather than the very limited (Article 4-sized) or Falmouth-only solution.
There was also a degree of scepticism about the effectiveness of an Article 4 Direction. Some of its proponents saw it as a 'way of controlling students. Others believed the effort would be better put into raising standards of existing HMOs. The meeting noted that HMOs are inhabited by a diverse population, not just students and that a holistic approach to housing might be more helpful.
It also suggested that a simpler and cheaper approach to an NP might be to seek to get the basic principles of sustainable housing and communities better articulated in the Allocation DPD. A high-level document on Development Standards was expected from Cornwall Council but had not yet been forthcoming, In the absence of this, we could feed in our own views on the benefits of master-planning for new developments.
Falmouth Tall Ships Regatta 2014
This had been a very enjoyable, very well organised, very well attended event. The location had been so much better than before, the events through the town had been attractive and the music simply splendid, especially as it was free.
There had been some problems with parking and some traders in areas not involved had reported very low footfall but the general feeling was that it had been good for the town attracting considerable national attention.
There were two evaluation surveys, one for visitors (closes 15 September) and one for businesses (closes 28 September).
Town Team
In the absence of the Town Manager and BID Manager, the following were noted:
It had been a very active year for events so far. Splash! the Autumn art event would be running between 20-28 September. The Oyster Festival would then bring the season to a close 9-12 October.
The government had published a consultation on the right to challenge unfair parking policies. This was open until 10 October.
Shorts
Dredging - things are moving forward and the Harbour Commissioners are more confident now than ever before. No budget has yet been identified.
Sea bird breeding area - there was no further news on the proposal to designate Falmouth Bay as protected area for key seabirds
Cycling Proposals for Falmouth and Penryn - there was no further news on the cycling proposals
Falmouth Bay – a Friends of Falmouth Bay group had been established to look after some of the infrastructure overlooking the bay. Cornwall Council were being helpful in this work.
The Falmouth Beaches Management Group had also been reconstituted with the aim of getting the beach back to Blue Flag status.
Scottish referendum: No one seemed terribly keen on the idea of storing nuclear missiles in the AONB of Trefusis headland as had been suggested as a possible consequence of the Scottish devolution vote.
Future meetings
12 November - at NMMC as usual (subject to confirmation) - at which the guest will be Kim Conchie CEO of Cornwall Chamber of Commerce.
The dates for the 2015 meetings are here.
Attending the meeting which was held on the 10th were:
Andy Coote (chairman) - Falmouth Business Club
Chris Smith - Community Plan
David Yelland - Falmouth Bay Residents Association
Gary Tranter - Falmouth Harbour Commissioners
Jackie George - Watersports Centre
Jilly Easterby - Falmouth Exeter Plus
Jonathan Griffin - National Maritime Museum Cornwall
Mike Jenks - Civic Society
Sally Stiles - Age Concern Befrienders
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