Dont let Cornwall shoot itself in the foot
During lockdown many of us had a rare opportunity to stop and smell the roses! To reflect and appreciate the wonderful county we all live in. Our natural environment and wildlife provides such a valuable part in improving our standard of living and wellbeing. My feeling coming out of lockdown is that we need the Council and our leaders in Cornwall to value this natural environment and our open spaces, beaches, coast and creeks. In pursuit of economic development, we seem to have lost sight of the fact that the reason we have a high standard of living, our natural environment, is at threat from continued development and increased in-migration.
Cornwall is a valuable asset to the UK and it is essential as a holiday destination for future generations to enjoy but its value is only protected if it is not over developed. Current blanket targets for house construction should not be applied in Cornwall. We are rapidly heading to a point where Cornwall is no longer a rural county but instead becomes a sprawling coastal city.
In these days of social media Cornwall is being aggressively marketed like never before to aspirational people, who are envious of our coastline, lifestyle and open spaces. Magazines like Cornwall Life and Cornwall Today, and Luxury estate agents showcase Cornwall as a luxury that everyone should strive to own a piece of. We are the victims of our own success.
Of course, we have to be realistic, we can’t pull up a drawbridge or apply a strict entry policy like Australia has done but we need to apply common sense in future years to prevent the rampant destruction of our county, and that will take bold leadership and radical legislation.
New homes should be built that are good quality and are affordable for local people. They must have decent sized gardens and windows and be well insulated and ideally heated using ground heat storage or hot rocks energy.
New build houses should only be available to buy to people with a genuine connection to Cornwall i.e. born here, lived and worked here for more than 5 years or having close relatives living here. Or those moving down here to set up businesses that will employ local people. A much higher percentage of new builds must be affordable.
We don’t need more second home ownership. Houses are for people to live in, not to profit from. This should be heavily taxed and holiday letting (including air b and b) should be prohibited so that landlords are forced to offer their accommodation to local people at reasonable rents.
A grip needs to be taken on our planning department. It is disgraceful how many planning applications are turned down by Cornwall Council and then over-turned by appeal to Bristol court. The current trend of buying perfectly functional houses and demolishing them and putting up massive ugly oversized new properties is a real threat to Cornwall’s valuable coastline and countryside and clearly our planning department is not in control of this.
We need proper jobs for Cornish people and fortunately now we have the internet many jobs allow you to work from wherever you like, (Coronavirus has demonstrated to more people than ever that this is the case) there have never been so many opportunities in Cornwall but this is also the reason we are seeing massive in-migration to our county as people who previously would have had to live in the city can work remotely from where ever they like.
I am really encouraged by the Councils approach to climate change and the fact that they have declared a climate emergency. In Cornwall we are fortunate to have abundant wind, wave, tidal and solar energy to tap into and with hot rocks close to the surface we need to prioritise setting up geothermal power stations with surplus heat used for industry and heating our homes.
Our county has everything it needs to become an net exporter of renewable energy however we need to be able to export it to the national grid and it is a disgrace that our current connection to the rest of the UK is apparently not fit for purpose (according to a good friend who works for Western Power Distribution) we don’t have sufficient capacity to export our surplus power which is ridiculous.
We need to use this potential to lead the way in terms of adoption of electric cars. To become a carbon neutral county we need to electrify our bus system and incentivise and provide charging points for rapid uptake of electric cars. Charging points need to be provided rapidly particularly for road side parking which is a huge challenge.
We need to be ambitious with our targets to manage and protect the natural environment. There is a strong argument for making the whole of Cornwall a National Park which would allow landscape scale management and enhancements to make sure nature is allowed to thrive in future years. Our seas urgently need better protection with a network of highly protected areas situated in optimal places for rapid recovery as decided by experts, which will benefit not only marine life but to local fishers who will see their future far more secure and seas more productive. Cornwall IFCA needs to be far better resourced and given powers to create bylaws far more efficiently and independently or this wont be realistically achieved.
Cornwall needs to be put back on course. We live in the greatest place on earth and lets make sure we make the most of it and don’t ruin it.
Tourism will always continue but it needs to be kept at a level where it doesn’t ruin the standard of living of locals and the environment, Cornwall’s adaptability and ingenuity needs to be focussed at renewable green energy and environmental protection, leading the way as we work our way out of the global climate emergency.