The good work of the Citizens Advice Bureau in Penzance, my visit last week

I was very grateful to be invited to the Citizens Advice Bureau in Penzance and to learn more about their work last week. It was a great insight into the kind of problems people in the St Ives constituency, gratitude to Phil Jacobson the Social Policy Co-ordinator for showing me the statistics and answering my questions. Congratulations to the CAB for taking the lead and inviting candidates from all parties to come along and find out about the issues that face the CAB and the people they help, I certainly hope all of the other candidates take this opportunity.


It's been a long time since I have been into a CAB and had to ask them for help (thankfully), but I know they do good work and I know they offer great advice and point people in the right direction and help those most in need and often with nowhere else to turn, in this regard it seems little has changed. That's not to say that the issues people go to the CAB for help about remain static. The amount of benefit cases rises every year and goes to show the impact that Coalition 'reforms' have had on people's lives. Particularly the ATOs Work Capability regime, which is widely reported to be overly harsh and punitive.

The statistics reveal that debt is the most common issue and in the St Ives Constituency 3,489 problems were dealt with, followed by benefits 2,122 problems, employment 406 and housing 310. Obviously government policies (or lack thereof) vitally effect these issues and people's lives. Debt is very troubling not only does it represent 47% of cases locally but it also outstrips the Cornwall average of 42% of cases. We might draw the conclusion that being the lowest paid constituency in Cornwall accounts for our difference.

It was also interesting to learn of the challenges facing the CAB locally. As with all organisations budget cuts hit them to and funding from government (e.g. in 2013 for Legal Services Commission) is decreasing. Although the annual Performance and Impact Report for CAB Cornwall reveals a healthy financial situation for the charity. It is easy to imagine how cuts to funding and increased demand puts pressure on the CAB's work. Especially when Cornwall Council itself is cutting front line staff and rumours abound that here in Penzance the benefits advice desk at the Council's One Stop Shop will close. Where will this people turn?

I was also intrigued to learn more about the CAB's role in influencing policy and trying to make a difference. Certainly they are in a prime position to know what the pressing issues are and what needs to be done to deal with them. Across the UK the CAB tries to influence party policy and I certainly think their 'Citizens Manifesto' and their document 'Manifesto Sentences Citizen's Advice Would Like to See' are both very good documents and reveal some great policies. Some they'd like parties to be pledging in the short term such as "We will ask the Low Pay Commission to consider how the National Minimum Wage can increase back to the real-terms value it held prior to the financial crash." and some for the longer term: "We will ensure that no household on a low income should have to live in a cold home (measured below Energy Performance Certificate level C) by 2025." Both documents available here and a must read for politicians.

I'll finish with a quick request, the Citizen's Advice Bureau does great work, they are a charity and they rely on volunteers. If you can help them either with a donation or to volunteer, click this link to go to their website, thanks.

Survey results: Why is Penzance town centre coming last on superfast broadband?

Below is the results of my survey on superfast broadband in Penzance town center. You can see my earlier posts on the subject here and in the Cornishman here. I provide a quick overlook at the results of the survey and some information from them. It is abundantly clear that organisations in the town centre feel a great deal of disappointment with the speed of superfast roll out. Again and again frustration is felt by businesses who have enquired of BT and Superfast Cornwall when Superfast broadband i.e. fibre to the premises (FTTP) will be available, with various deadlines given that have all come and gone. It was widely anticipated that FTTP would have been available a couple of years ago, nearer the start of the project in 2010 then the end of the project 2015. Despite the fact that Penzance's streets have been dug up and fibre cabling installed it is not yet available and the town centre is part of the 15% of the area not yet elgible for FTTP. Needless to say various organisations feel so frustrated and bemused that they can see where the trenches were dug yards from their premises yet that few yards bears no relation to how close getting FTTP is.


In terms of the survey I successfully had 13 organisations in Penzance town centre and 1 in Newlyn respond to the survey. I have been in contact with others, notably Penzance Chamber of Commerce and a few other businesses who have expressed the same kinds of frustrations as the respondents, but were either too busy or too sick of thinking about the whole thing to respond. I would have liked more organisations, but I guess many are busy and the big retail chains, restaurants, bakers and takeaways I did not get into contact with. Perhaps many that didn't respond saw little benefit to superfast and are primarily based in the good old folks through the door shopping. Or perhaps personally speaking to every business rather than emailing/ facebook messaging would have been more successful.

All of the respondents used the internet to generate business.

On a scale of 1 to 10, (1 meaning the internet was not important and 10 very important) answers were:

• 1 0%
• 2 0%
• 3 0%
• 4 7%
• 5 7%
• 6 0%
• 7 0%
• 8 21%
• 9 7%
• 10 57%

Would a fast connection improve your business?

• Yes 86%
• No 7%
• Don't know 7%

Do you have access to Superfast Broadband?

• Yes 0%
• No 100%
• Don't know 0%

Would you upgrade to superfast is available?

• Yes 79%
• No 7%
• Don't know 14%

Without superfast in the town centre, would you consider relocating? 

• Yes 7%
• No 71%
• Don't know 21%

Below some of the comments forwarded: 

"Absolutely bonkers that the town centre has not got superfast broadband when places like Newlyn where I live have had it for a while now. Should be other way round! Would certainly help our business. Internet trading is improving year on year."

"Never quite understood why the centre of town, a few yards from exchange last to get it ?"

"Our company has created a new service that should be going live within the next six months. It is crucial for the service that we have FTTP into our office. The critical part is the upload speed that fibre provides since this service will be sending data to the client side. If we do not have fibre by the time we are ready to go live, sadly we will have no other option but to relocate our office, leaving yet another commercial space unoccupied in the town centre. We have found the whole thing very frustrating because despite regular enquires about when we will be getting FTTP (beginning over one year ago), we have never been given any answer more detailed than "it's not available at the moment". It makes it nearly impossible for companies to plan for the future if BT will not give a reason for why we are not able to receive FTTP yet, or give us a rough idea of when it might be implemented. Thank you for your email and involvement with this issue."

"It is astonishing that the facility is not available in the town centre. CC funded BT to the tune of £100m and we are NOT getting the service we deserve!!"

"It would be interesting to get a map to show the areas that are included in the 5% who will never get access - that way we will know once and for all."

"Without reliable Internet, my business cannot exist. I believe that my revenue would increase with FTTP as i could expand on the remote support services that we currently offer meaning less time out of the office. As the situation is now, I cannot offer any further services as bandwidth and reliability are so limited."

"Yes – however the plan made little sense – why install in domestic settings before business settings – other than to benefit the installers financially?"

"Not yet (available)– Given various estimates, (would you consider relocating?) Potentially - especially the ecommerce side of our business."

"I would be able to do a lot of work (accounts, updating the website etc) from home if superfast had reached there. Instead of helping rural communities, the work has stopped short (2 miles) of achieving its goal. You are right to try to improve the town centre but don't stop there! Our customers would have more money if they too could work effectively from home but many are forced to take lower paid and often seasonal work because the internet is 0.2mb !!!"

"good for business in general? it's been too patchy to be truly successful. But all the crowing over the installation of it was done too early, so people don't realise there's still so much to be done. good for Penzance? Perhaps, for those who have it. good for your business? As one of the ones left out, then no."

The statistics and the comments speak for themselves. Superfast Broadband is good for business, when the scheme was announced back in 2010. It was widely boasted that Cornwall would have the fastest broadband in the world, four years on this has not proved to be true. Quite why Penzance town centre is part of the increasingly small part of Cornwall not hooked up to superfast is not clear. When FTTP will be available also is not clear and may well be at the very end of the project. We need investment in the town, businesses trade in a competitive environment and lagging behind is a foolish option. Why is Penzance town centre coming last?

I have forwarded the results of this survey to senior members of LEP Cornwall, Cornwall Council and BT in an effort to see some progress. Any answers I receive I will publish on this blog. 

Superfast Broadband in Penzance town centre

Just a quick post, I'm still away visiting in laws, don't fret normal wordy and lengthy posts will return soon!

The big news is of course that the story has been run by the Cornishman. With some good arguments (see that here) hopefully the powers that be I.e. BT, Superfast Cornwall and Cornwall Council will start to take note and we might see the much trumpeted next gen technology in Penzance town centre some time soon. 

A couple of things to point out, I've had a number of replies from town centre organisations via email, Facebook message and on the Google docs form. These need to be collated when I get back and I'm hoping to get some more responses to gain a better understanding of how the Internet (and crucially it's speed) plays a part in the town's commerce.

But there are key themes,  notably a sense of frustration with BT/ Superfast Cornwall about the roll out of fibre to the premises and the ever delayed dates of when superfast broadband will be available. The importance of fast, reliable internet on existing business. How superfast broadband could increase efficency, allow some companies to expand and many to grow. There are a number of shops, as you would expect, not reliant on the internet but see the potential as a good thing for Penzance. 

Stay tuned for more on this soon.

The Penzance plan starts here, with myself on the board!

This is of course the neighbourhood plan for Penzance, more properly and in the words of a former Cornwall Council planner (Andy England) the process of 'planning for a plan' is well and truly in the offing. Last night at the town council I was elected onto the Penzance Neighbourhood Plan Board. Regular readers of the blog will now I have written on this subject before, back in October last year Should Penzance create a Neighbourhood Development Plan? I think it gives my initial views on the process and also some of the limitations I think it holds. For a more generic description try this from the DCLG.

Briefly a Neighbourhood Plan (NP) guides and informs planning decisions for the length of the plan (typically 20 years). Within the constraints of planning law (i.e. the National Planning Policy Framework) and the local plan (currently being devised by Cornwall Council). Unlike those policies that have already decided crucial matters like number of houses the NP will have the constraint and the advantage of being borne from the community. Although Penzance Town Council has started this process and will work with others it is not our plan, it is the communities plan. The whole process is punctuated by public consultations and then at the end a public referendum. There is a lot of talk about localism at the moment and giving local communities the say on key decisions, the Neighbourhood Plan is one of the few examples of this happening.

I think it would be very easy to underestimate the scale and importance of this task. Simple old fashioned public consultations won't cut it, listening only to consultants or solely to those that shout loudest could mean the plan will be doomed to failure at referendum, it is imperative the vast majority of the public are involved in the process. So it will be a great deal of work but will be better for it.

Policies outlined in Penzance's plan will become planning law. I'm sure any of us could look around the town (or indeed anywhere else) and see planning decisions that for better or worse have changed the fundamental nature of the place. For example, what if planners had never allowed the harbour to be filled in for a car park? what if your local park or green space had been built upon? It's easy to see planning policies as words on a piece of paper but the decisions taken in the plan will help shape the future of our community. I know many of you will be reading this well aware of planning policies you do and don't like, but I do hope there are others reading this now (and in the future of the process) that will think about how planning effects themselves and their neighbourhoods and what they'd like to see from it.

So what is the board? Well firstly it has been named the Penzance Neighbourhood Plan Board and its job is Governance and Management of the NP process. To be more exact:

"Establishing an appropriate governance and management structure - The Penzance Neighbourhood Plan Board (PNPB) and a Project Manager - is critical to the success of the NP. The PNPB will oversee the NP's development, dissemination and community consultation and ensure that the process complies with its statutory duties."

The first task of the PNPB will be to make an application to central government for grant funding for the first stage. From there it is imperative to create a communication and engagement strategy and start the long process of getting people involved in the decisions!

I don't have a great deal left to say at this point. This is a huge task and it will go on for a long time and I'm not even sure how long that will be. I've a lot to learn about a lot of things which really excites me. I'm really looking forward to the challenge and all that is left to say is a thank you to my fellow town councillors that showed faith in me and voted me on to the board. I hope I live up to the expectations.