Sainsbury's million pound 106 money, where is it?

I'm sure many of us remember back in May, that our new Cornwall Councillors, Tim Dwelly, Cornelius Olivier and Jim McKenna fought to change the 106 agreement with Sainsburys. Rather than spending the £1.2 million, gained to Cornwall Council from the supermarket, on a park and ride they felt the money would be better spent in the town centre.

As Cllr Dwelly told the Cornishman:

"I don't think a park-and-ride is the best way to spend the money," he said.

"We know that it's possible for Cornwall Council to spend it in a different way than what's in the agreement.

"What we're now exploring with them, and hopefully with Penzance Town Council and the Town Team, is a better way of spending the money.

"Penzance is in crisis and needs some urgent help, not just long-term improvement."

With the supermarket opening it's petrol station tomorrow and the store on a week wednesday (13th of November). Where will the money be spent? The simple answer is no one in Penzance knows.  I asked the town clerk and mayor months ago, what was happening with the 106 money. Little did I know that they were already chasing it up with Cornwall Council. 

With a full town council meeting tomorrow and the agenda already set, it's depressing that not once in these last 6 months have we as a body been consulted on a new way of spending the money or even told how this money will be redirected. Unfortunately requests by the town clerk to find out more have not been responded to. Even sadder is the fact the people of Penzance, whether residents or businesses have also had no say and remain in the dark. With completion so near and the 106 money to be handed over with it, was the talk of more money for the town centre just for headlines. Will we still end up with a park and ride and effectively subsidising the build of a car park for the store? I'm sure we'll soon find out.

Karin Schepers, demonstrates the need for emergency tugs in Cornwall

Barely 24 hours ago (early hours 3/8/11) a German owned vessel called the Karin Schepers ran aground near Cape Cornwall. Fortunately no one was injured and the 9,000 ton container ship was undamaged, miraculously the ship avoided the jagged rocks of the West Penwith coast and ran aground on a sandy beach. Certainly it would have been a different story had the ship struck the rocks, now at the very best we would be clearing up pollution and at the very worst who knows?

This incident goes to show that even in the best of conditions the shipping lanes around Cornwall are a very dangerous place. This should serve as a wake up call for the government to start taking maritime safety seriously, we can easily imagine why Mike Penning (minister responsible for shipping) has no idea about maritime matters, I would probably be the same if I lived in Hemel Hempstead (where he is MP). Similarly too with the Transport Minister Philip Hammond in his inland Surrey constituency of Runnymede and Weybridge. They have no idea about why maritime safety is so important and is why they are planning on slashing Coastguard stations and withdrawing funding for the Emergency Tug Vessels (ETVs). I just hope that both of them have read about this case and realised that Emergency Tugs are essential when we have such large ships in Cornish waters. (It was not needed but the Anglian Princess was tasked to assist with re-floating the German container ship, certainly if the tide had not been so favourable this would have been necessary. Also if she had struck rocks the Anglian Princess would have been essential to salvage the vessel and/ or start cleaning up the pollution.)

The Anglian Princess, note the new darker colour scheme

As I have written before the Anglian Princess is essential to assist ships and boats in distress at sea. This is a service that might seem like figures on paper to Penning and Hammond, but if they lived by the sea and were responsible to constituents in coastal communities they would think these things through more carefully.

For more information, there's an article about the beaching of the Karin Schepers on the excellent Cornwall Community News site:  with some great pics of the incident too.
My earlier blog Scrapping Coastguard tugs is the Government Oblivious to Maritime Safety?