Meeting - May 2011

Town Framework Study
A small group has been working with Cornwall Council planners on the Town Framework Study. This identifies areas for expansion of the two towns based on criteria such as available land, access to transport links, schools, neighbourhood centres and landscape issues. Most of the sites idnetified are in the halo around the towns. This is due to go out to consultation in June and will inform planning policy.

Port of Falmouth Master Plan
The consultation was now over and had proved informative. There were few major surprises but there were some issues still to resolve. The partners are now working on their final proposals which will be completed by 19 June and will go CC Cabinet in July for endorsement.

All we need now is permission to dredge even though there were many other projects in the Docks would be going ahead anyway.

Cruise ships
A very successful cruise ship visit had taken place on 7 May: 3,000 passengers who were delivered by shuttle boats to the town. A record 31 tour coaches were used. The Ambassadors were appreciative of the help of the BID and other partners. If only she had been able to moor alongside ...

Future of the Tourist Information Centre
This had now closed although it wa sunderstood that a post-midnight attempt was still being made to re-open it. A private sector alternative might yet emerge. The discussions around its closure had been confused, slow and drawn out which had not helped a smooth transfer to a new model.

Traffic in the main street
There has been no further progress on discussions with CC about partial closure of Church Street Car Park. Their traffic survey started in Augsut 2010 was still too secret to be discussed or even shared with anyone in the town. It was highly likely, therefore, that another summer season would go by without any meaningful discussions or experiment of alternative traffic management.

The CC report on contamination has also not been published or, apparently, acted upon.

The BID team and Town Manager were discussing a number of ideas to encourage greater use of the town for shopping, including possibly paying to open all the car parks free of charge for a series of key days.

Town issues
Much work was being done by the BID team and Town Manager on:

• Dressing the town with flags and baskets
• Producing a new version of the map and a poster of the major events
• A full range of festivals was planned for the year (see the Falmouth website for details)
• A new shopper bag
• A new bench to be sited in the Market Strand area
• Public relations 

Seaside towns funding
Twelve Cornish towns have been invited to bid for money from a joint government/CC fund of £400k which is available to support a range of improvements. It was agreed that the BID team was ideally suited to lead this. Possible matching money might be obtained from other sources such as Convergence. Expressions of interest are due by 29 July.

350 Anniversary of Falmouth Charter
Work is progressing on a programme to celebrate this event which would be officially launched, along with a suitable beer, on Monday 16 May. The bid to the HLF had failed on a technicality but was being revived.

The Forum was committed to helping develop a vision for the next ten years and Chris Smith would be leading on this.

BIDs on the Industrial Estates
The idea of developing BIDs on the industrial estates had been dropped because the business case did not look sound. Instead, a proposal for another piece of work looking at the rest of the waterfront in the Port area (including all the Penryn river), coupled to the industrial estates, in order to highlight opportunities and  develop a strategy.

Connecting Cornwall 2010 - Local Transport Plan
The Forum had responded to the consultation on the Implementation Plan. A final version of the Plan had not been published and it was thus unclear what was being planned in Falmouth over the coming three years. Rumours were that the outstanding road repairs in Arwennack Street were to be started 'soon'.

Maritime and Coastguard Agency
The Forum had responded to the consultation about the Falmouth MRCC and had received a long, if tangential reply.

Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP)
Chris Pomfret had been appointed as chairman. It was expected that the other directors would be named soon. There would be six appointees from CC and seven private sector ones.

Cornwall Council
CC is going through another re-organisation into a series of Arms Length Organisations (ALMOs), allowing the Council to be a more strategic body. Over £1bn of planning applications were being discussed which suggested that investments were still being made.

In brief:

• The Community Alive event would be held in the Poly on 21 May. More details
• The Tremough Culture Festival would also be happening on 21 May More details
• Following cuts in their budgets, Falmouth Befriending were looking to raise £20,000 a year and needed help, ideas and money More details
• The short version of the Community Plan had been produced and coies were in the post

Those attending the meeting:Sally Stiles - Age Concern
Mike Varney - Cornwall Council
Scott Sharples - Cornwall Council
Dick Stiles - Civic Society
Tim Light – Fal River Links
David Pollard – Falmouth Ambassadors
Richard Gates - Falmouth Town Manager
Malcolm Farrar - Falmouth Chamber of Commerce
Shaun Davie – Falmouth and District Hotels Association
John Langan - Falmouth Harbour Commissioners
David Stedman - Falmouth Marine School
Oliver Cramp – Falmouth Town Council
Jackie George – Falmouth Watersports
Jonathan Griffin – National Maritime Museum Cornwall (Chairman)
Michael Jenks - RCPS (The Poly)
Nigel Druce - Rotary
Lorely Lloyd - Transition Falmouth
Jilly Easterby – UCF & the University of Exeter

Non Meeting - March 2011

We cancelled the March meeting at the last minute because of the number of people away and the clash with the MCA Consultation on the possible closure of the 24 hour operations of the the Falmouth MRCC. Members of the Forum attended the MCA meeting and have since written an impassioned letter to the MCA objecting to the proposals.

The next meeting of the Forum will be on Wednesday 11 May.

The following is an update on a number of issues which would have been covered at the March meeting.

Convergence activities
The major Convergence expenditure in the two towns has gone  towards the production of the Port Masterplan which has now been published for consultation. The Forum has responded to this along the lines of 'Well done; what is not to like'.

Some more Convergence money had been set aside to assist the development of the industrial estates around Falmouth and Penryn. Cornwall Development Company (CDC) had suggested that this might be best spent on developing new Business Improvement Districts (BIDs). The level of income raised would be insufficient to make these viable and the existing town centre BID is reluctant to extend its boundaries at the present time. The Falmouth and Penryn Regeneration Committee is now working with CDC on alternatives which will help to stimulate improvements in the economic activity at the various industrial estates.

The Chamber of Commerce is organising a Business event for the morning of 19 May which will contribute to this work.

The Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP)
The creation of the LEP has not been smooth. Sir John Banham has now been installed as President and a new chairman has been found. Chris Pomfret comes from Unilever although he lives in Cornwall. A biography can be found at CV. We await news of other Board members and some idea of what the LEP will actually do. It will have no dedicated resources unlike SWRDA which, in a sense, it replaces.

The recent Budget mentioned that LEPs can apply for areas to become Enterprise Zones within which planning will be relaxed (some of us are old enough to remember the same scheme in the early 80s). This may be a target for our LEP.

Cornwall Council studies
There are two important studies taking place at the moment. The Town Framework Plan is a bottom-up look at the two towns and looks for areas  where expansion might be encouraged  based on things like available land, access to transport links, schools and neighbourhood centres. This work has been going ahead well and has narrowed down possible expansion sites. It will be submitted to Councillors for approval in due course.

The second study is the Core Strategy which is top-down and looks at the needs of the county for new housing. The figures are big: we will need between 2,000 and 2,850 new houses a year for 30 years (much the same as the present level of growth) but where should they be?

• Option 1: Cornwall towns - concentrate growth on existing major towns
• Option 2: Dispersed - spread growth across all towns 
• Option 3: Economy-led – align housing growth with economic investment

This will define the sort of county we live in. There is more about this at Core Strategy There is a deadline for responses at the end of April and we will be trying to contribute one  on behalf of the Forum. If you are interested in contributing then please contact the chairman.

The recent news about the rejection by local people of expansion at Rame and Longdowns does not suggest that developing new housing is going to be easy.

350th Anniversary of the Falmouth Charter
Work is progressing on a programme to celebrate the 350th anniversary. We are awaiting news on the Heritage Lottery Fund bid. The Forum is committed to developing a new vision for the next 10 to 20 years and is looking for members to help develop the ideas.

Sainsbury’s Planning application
The new Sainsbury's development is rumbling on but seems likely to go ahead. The Cornwall Strategic Planning Committee recently held a consultation session which threw up few major issues.

Connecting Cornwall 2030
Cornwall Council consulted on its Local Transport Plan (LTP3) in two parts: with an initial Strategic document which covered the whole period, and then with an Implementation Plan which covers the three years starting April 2011. The Forum commented on both of these. We have heard no response to the second and therefore have no idea what the Transport Department is planning in our town for the coming three years. The last time this happened (LTP2), you will recall, we found ourselves with a reversal of flow which we were told 'had been consuilted on' and which was later rejected by the community.

The bollard: the implementation of the 24 hour ban on driving in the main street has passed without notice as the bollard is still operating on its old schedule.

Car Park usage: the CC Transport Department is carrying out a study of all car parks in Falmouth to assess the financial and transport impact of closing Church Street Car Park. Apparently this is too confidential to be discussed before it is seen by Councillors.

Parking charges: we are none the clearer on what is planned for parking charges in Falmouth. The Transport sub-group is responding the recent proposals, pointing out that having unification of prices across the county is hardly imaginative and does not recognise the different needs of different towns; and that to have the same prices for Church Street Car Park and the Quarry makes little sense.

Pedestrian crossing: it is good to see the new pedestrian crossing being installed on Melvill Road.

Future of the Falmouth Tourist Information Centre (TIC)
The existing TIC will be closing at the end of March as planned, despite attempts by a number of people to develop a replacement, but different service. CC was unable to agree to aspects of the latter. The closure has been caused by a dramatic cut in the budget for Visit Cornwall which will mean that Falmouth loses some £350k per annum of tourism support that it received under Carrick. This is a major blow for those businesses that rely on visitors.

Cornwall Council
Those of us who deal with officials at CC will know that the council is in the middle of yet another re-organisation which is causing a predicatble amount of chaos: different people having radically different expectations on what will happen next and the nature of current policies; and consequent delays in decision-making.

Falmouth Town Manager and BID update
There is not enough room to list the activities that the two Richards are making happen in the town. All of them are positive. Many of these are covered on the Falmouth website The most notable has been the recent successful Spring Festival.

Port Masterplan Consultation

The Port of Falmouth Development Initiative Steering Group invites everyone to come and see, and give their views on the Port of Falmouth Draft Masterplan

• On: Friday 18th March 10am - 7pm or Saturday 19th March, 10am - 7pm
• At: Falmouth Watersports Centre, The Boat Park, Grove Place

In 2008, the Port of Falmouth Development Initiative (POFDI) was formed to prepare and progress proposals for the development of the Port, particularly focussed on proposals for the Docks area. The POFDI included representatives from Cornwall Council (CC), Falmouth Harbour Commissioners (FHC), A&P Falmouth (A&P), Pendennis Super Yachts, World Fuel Services, South West of England Regional Development Agency (SWRDA), Cornwall Development Company (CDC) and Government Office for the South West.

A Steering and Working Group from the above representatives was established to drive forward the Initiative, with a key element being the development of a Masterplan for the port. The Masterplan will consist of a strategic level action plan identifying a medium to long term programme of investment opportunities which will make a long-term difference to the economy of the Docks, Falmouth and Cornwall.