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
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.
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