Reactions ranged from great
interest, among towns and villages elsewhere, including western Wessex,
to threats of judicial review by appalled developers. Wessex
already has an example of this type of policy, in the Lynton and Lynmouth
Neighbourhood Plan in Devon, but this could be argued as an exception because
of its location within the Exmoor
National Park. What happens when exceptions become the new
rule?
Ministers in Lunnon insist
that this is the sort of thing up with which they will not put. The law will be changed to curb these uppity yokels. Cornwall
is surely somewhere that only comes into existence during the holiday season
and switches itself off afterwards. Localism? Oh, we really are having a laugh.
The current issue of the MK
magazine Cornish Nation highlights
the raw deal that Cornwall
is increasingly getting. A cross-border
Devonwall Parliamentary constituency is looming, regardless of token recognition
of the Cornish as a national minority. (If
approved, this will make it impossible for MK candidates to represent Cornwall and only Cornwall,
just as it will make it impossible for us to represent Wessex and only Wessex.) Last month, a paltry £150,000 a year grant to
support the Cornish language – equivalent to about three MPs’ expenses claims –
was peremptorily withdrawn, to widespread dismay. Cornwall’s
Grand Bard described this spiteful act, so damaging to the tourism offer, as “an ideological decision based on
indifference and not a financial one based on fiscal responsibility”.
Last year’s ‘Cornwall
Devolution Deal’ was so feeble as to be an abuse of the word ‘devolution’, so
limited in scope that it did not merit legislation or even a Commons
debate. The key areas of housing and
planning are excluded from the deal.
Instead, the centralist inspection regime has imposed on Cornwall a much higher
housebuilding target than that deemed appropriate by the majority of local residents
and also re-written the council’s affordable housing policies to undermine their
effectiveness.
As if to pour petrol on the
flames, the Court of Appeal yesterday ruled it lawful for the London
regime to prevent councils seeking contributions to affordable housing from sites
of 10 homes or fewer, overturning a previous ruling obtained by Reading and West Berkshire
councils. These small windfall sites,
often redevelopment sites, are the sort that can make a significant – and generally
uncontroversial – contribution to housing development in our towns and villages. Excluding them means that councils are ever
more reliant on the volume housebuilders to deliver their one affordable for
every two market houses.
This in turn puts ever more
pressure on councils to allow more market houses than are actually needed by
the local population, leading to yet more second homes and an influx of retired
folk whose social care costs later in life are met from local taxation, not from
national taxation or by the areas in which they paid taxes when working. Meanwhile, as the Revenue Support Grant is
being squeezed out of existence its place is being taken by the New Homes
Bonus, a shameless bribe to councils to build or lose out.
This all began in the 1980s when
we largely stopped building council houses and loaded the cost of social
housing onto homebuyers, who themselves are often struggling to afford the prices. Landowners do nicely though, with three
attempts since 1945 at capturing their heightened development value through
taxation or public ownership overturned by the Tories and no fourth attempt in
sight.
The point we have to hammer
home is that you really do get what you vote for. Cornwall
elected the full set of six Tory MPs last year.
What did it expect to get in return?
Little victories like St Ives mean nothing if the one lot can still
count on your vote ‘to keep the other lot out’.
Tory, Labour, LibDem. All
centralist and all rotten to the core. So
forget ‘the other lot’. Be your own lot
and deny them all the power to do your community lasting harm.
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