Mount's Bay needs massive investment from the next government

If elected as an MP for the St Ives constituency, I would make it my mission to get the investment we deserve into sea defences and to help reconnect our communities with the sea. There is huge potential to grow the economy of Penzance, Newlyn and the whole of Mount's Bay and Penwith if we can secure from government the money to unleash this potential. We need sea defences, investment in our harbours and support for industries that rely upon the sea and the capacity to grow new ones.

For far too long we have seen investment opportunities pass us by, as top down approaches have been thought up in distant places and brought to the bay. This has resulted in politicians at all levels descend into fractious debates and rather than work together for the common good and investment they have pulled apart in the name of petty political point scoring. This attitude must stop, we must find ways of working together.

I have always passionately believed that the best solutions come from the ground up. In my time working on the Penzance Neighbourhood Plan it has really opened my eyes to what can be achieved, by giving people the choice to dream their own dreams and come up with their own ideas, thousands of great imaginations can spark to life. We need to utilise the desire by many local people to build a better place and be inspired by their vision and ambition.

If elected as MP I would work with people from the grass roots up to build a consensus around the things we want invested in by government. Not by alienating stakeholders but by engaging them. Mount's Bay is ready and eager for a new kind of politics, one that gets things done. By doing so and engaging people I am confident that we could work out the key problems for things like investment in our harbours and sea defences. We could draw up our own plans and reverse the whole process by taking our ideas from the community to the people in suits and end the opposite approach which has caused alienation, division and failure.

We lost out on a £63 million investment from the coalition government for Penzance harbour. Instead we have the booby prize of dredging and new pavements. The cynic in me thinks it is not a coincidence that all of this work is going on now, during election time. To be even more cynical I wonder to myself sometimes what cost more to the public purse, the works to Penzance harbour? or the strings of visits by Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians coming down from Westminster for election photo calls?

Lots of great work has been done around Penzance prom, Newlyn Green and soon Jubilee Pool. On that note we all remember that Cameron's words 'money is not object' for storm repairs, in front of the cameras? Well it was just that, words, the coalition government didn't help a bit, as they refused to cough up. Now we are getting back to some kind of normality, we need the sea defences in place to stop this happening again. For the sea is a great asset for the area it is also a great danger, but not one to be feared if we can get the breakwater or other sea defences we actually need.

We see the government invest in all kinds of infrastructure schemes. the massively expensive HS2 is a prime example but there are many more. Cornwall can not keep losing out in these big spending projects. We need strong voices in Westminster, that won't be silenced by party loyalties or shooed away. It is not an easy thing I am proposing, but we need vision to secure a brighter future and mine is this: we need to get people involved in the decision making process and take our ideas to Westminster and challenge them to do right by West Cornwall for once.

A step closer to a Breakwater for Penzance?

It's certainly not new news that a breakwater in Mount's Bay is widely desired. Personally I think it's long overdue and I hope the winter will not again prove that the sea defences of the town are inadequate. Regular readers will remember my posts on the subject earlier this year. Thankfully this is one of those issues that looks to pass from the realms of press releases to reality (or nearer to it).

At Monday's Penzance Town Council meeting it will be put to the councillors that a feasibility study is needed to investigate options. That with the backing of the town council and crucially a £10,000 contribution, the Department for Transport could find the rest of the £100,000 cost. Quite why Cornwall Council as owners of the harbour and promenade are not involved is puzzling to say the least.

A breakwater would be a small step in the right direction. Perhaps the much fancied ideas about rejuvenating the harbour and prom might, with a breakwater come into fruition. After consistent lobbying and making arguments parts of the Penzance Harbour Users Association plans look to take shape.

But we nevertheless must be cautious. A £10,000 payment by the town council can't be taken lightly, it is a lot of money. We might doubt that the feasibility study will not be used and sit collecting dust. There's enough studies, consultant reports and plans on Penzance seafront to fill a small library. I'm not arguing that we ought not try, this is indeed the perfect time, but we should be wary and realise the enormity of the task before us.

The feasibility study will (or might) be the first step toward a sustainable future for the seafront a place protected and worth investing in. It will take further work convincing the government to part with the money, but there's an election coming up folks lobby those standing for election and hold them to their promises.

I hope the vote will go the right way on monday and we can look to build a brighter future.

Government finally acknowledge Penzance town council letter about flood defences

On monday I blogged about Penzance and the lackadaisical response to the flood damage from central government.  I expressed disappointment that the letter sent to the Prime Minister from the then mayor Phil Rendle had gone weeks and weeks without a response. Just now 5 days after I posted my blog, the post came, including a letter from Dan Rogerson providing a partial response to some of the points raised by the town council.

Dan writing here in his capacity as Parliamentary Under Secretary in DEFRA. Apoligises for the lateness in the reply citing high volumes of correspondence about the winter storms. (Perhaps it's not just the passport office running a record back log?)

The following paragraphs are pretty generic.  I'm sure everyone's had ample time over the last 3 months to read and hear government ministers repeat these messages. Here they're no doubt copied and pasted from elsewhere. 1.4 million homes saved from flooding across the UK, capital investment programme across the UK blah blah blah.

Things change to the subject of Mount's Bay and the £95,000 allocated to Cornwall Council to draw up a coastal management strategy.  Big sums maybe. Enough to do that job maybe. The letters also has a briefing note attached from the Environment Agency (dated May 2014), which explains a little more about this strategy and the important fact this project started in summer 2013. We can only trust those original allocated funds are enough to cover the task and that the strategy will take lessons from the 2014 storms...

The letter explains any options of a break water to protect the seafront will need to be considered in that strategy. Again will due weight be given to more recent storms in this regard?

Apparently Defra and Cornwall Council have been working on a business case to repair the Eastern Green- Penzance harbour-Penzance prom, sea defences.  That £2.98 million has been secured to repair these sea defences. Welcome news, I have no idea how far that goes to putting good the damage or what they're even proposing. Sounds like early days for that one, fingers crossed work is done before next winters storms...

As for Newlyn Green apparently little will be done as according to the Environment Agency there's: "little risk of flooding or erosion resulting in a loss of residential property." Quite what works are going there at the moment are obviously unknown to government. Presumably Cornwall Council is picking up that tab...

There's a similar approach to Jubilee Pool to quote the Environment Agency report: "the damage and potential further loss of the Jubilee Pool has limited impact on risk to the property adjacent to the area, so would not eligible for funding from this allocation." Like their view on Newlyn Green I think's it's a contestable point and both ignore the fact there are buildings not to mention a vital road protected to some degree by these structures.

I'm still disappointed all this talk of "money is no object" and "I'll pick up the tab" from David Cameron is now muddled with a raft of ifs, buts and maybes. Not only that but a straight answer is so very difficult. Here we are months after the storms and we're still no nearer to our sea front being fixed and we don't even know when it will be done and what it will end up looking like. On the plus side at least Westminster is replying to letters on the issue now....

What does Penzance need to do to get storm money from the government?!?

One hundred and fifteen days ago, or if you prefer 3 months and 26 days ago, Penzance was hit by ferocious storms culminating in the biggest one on St Valentine's day. Despite various promises at the time when the media spotlight was on the government, precious little has been done since in the forgotten west. In a stark contradiction to the prompt repairs in Aberystwyth. As many coastal communities, the Somerset levels and riverside properties feared for their homes and livelihoods it was boom times for the gentleman outfitters in the vicinity of Westminster with a big run on wellington boots. As members of all the Westminster parties were quick to turn and practice their concerned faces:

Here in Penzance millions of pounds worth of damage was caused, the prom was a mess, Newlyn Green was like a demolition site, the harbour wall had blocks missing, the rail line was flooded. As this video from the day after amply demonstrates (just some) of that destruction:



Credit to the emergency services, Cormac and Cornwall Council I often criticise the latter in their approach to Penzance. But they did a really good job of getting the road back open and making the area safe. Unfortunately precious little has happened since, despite government promises at the time that money was no object, Cameron's promise has had little effect on the ground. Despite the fact I wrote to the Prime Minister on the 23rd of February  asking when storm money would be spent in Penzance I never received a reply from David Cameron. I wasn't reallly expecting anything to come of it, but I was surprised when Penzance Town Council wrote to the government asking when promised storm damage monies and urging government to work with other bodies to build a breakwater but also received no answer.

So here we are the picture above was taken the other day. What does it say about Penzance, hardly inspiring for locals or visitors to be faced with that every day. But could things be different?

Yes it turns out, I came across this story the other day, with a commitment from the Welsh Assembly government to carry out works to Aberystwyth prom before easter. By the local authority (Ceredigion Council) and the national government working together to get this fixed as fast as possible releasing monies necessary, no heel dragging, blaming bureaucracy making everyone jump through long and convoluted bid processes. What a great example of devolved government being closer to the people, more in touch with local areas and working better with other authorities. What a refreshing story compared to central government who couldn't even be bothered to reply to letters let alone spend some of our taxes for the common good. I'd write to someone and complain but what would the point be?

Great news for Jubilee Pool

Tonight Penzance Town Council voted unanimously to put money into the grant bid to central government for our lido. As a part we undertake to enter negotiations with Cornwall Council and in partnership with the Friends of Jubilee Pool to have it devolved to the town. 

Those of you that read my earlier blog will know I had serious problems with the way this was went about by Cornwall Council. In summary we were informed last thursday there would be a meeting tonight and it was make or break for the grant application due in this friday the 9th of May (then in hands of govt to decide). Not enough time to fully consider the merits of the proposal.

Nevertheless I spoke and my main thrust was that yes was the only answer. The thought of losing this as an asset was unbearable.  Further the idea of having a derelict pool in such a prominent position was an unbearable one.

I did however criticise Cornwall Council for not coming to Penzance Town Council (and indeed the Friends of Jubilee Pool) sooner. This is after all the third application and we played no part in the first two bids. We should have been given ample time but weren't. I also criticised the fact that this could easily have been funded from Cornwall Council's capital budget rather than the devolution pot. I explained that this budget was £675 million for the years 2013 to 2017.

Both Cornwall Councillors present (Cornelius Olivier and Jim McKenna) criticised me for this, defended Cornwall Council spending and explained I was categorically wrong. I explained to both that I would show them the link and I have emailed them both. 

I take it from this that our Cornwall Councillors haven't lobbied for capital funding to be used for the pool and have little knowledge of the budget itself. Which is a real shame. My pride aside and disappointment that I have a better grasp of funding available to capital projects than our Cornwall Councillors. It was a very good meeting.

Now indeed the future of the Jubilee Pool is finally looking up, notwithstanding the whims of Whitehall and Eric Pickles who will decide the grants fate. We could be looking at an investment of nearly £3 million in the pool. Which will not only repair the storm damage but repair and refurbish those parts that haven't been good for a while. Hopefully we can go from a tired and dated structure in a prominent position to one we can all be proud of. This is not only thanks to Cornwall Councillors, town councillors but also to the indefatigable Friends of Jubilee Pool and the 4000 who signed the petition calling on Cornwall Council to match fund the bid.

*****UPDATE*****

Jim McKenna replied this morning and explained he thought I was talking about this years revenue budget not the four yearly capital budget. I can only think that as he was sitting behind me he didn't hear me clearly and perhaps I was not speaking loudly enough....

******************
Further update

Councillor Olivier (also Labour's general candidate for the St Ives constituency) emailed he disagreed with my points in a rather rude fashion accusing me of being parochial and ill informed. Cornelius ignored the fact I was right about the capital budget and what he said in the meeting was wrong. Amazing how a year changes things last year he along with Tim Dwelly wrote to the Cornishman including the sentence: "Our aim is to get a fair share of Cornwall Council investment ." But now the story is there's no money and we should bow and grovel for a few crumbs from the table...

Sign the petition to save Penzance's Jubilee Pool

Not a great deal to say on this one. SIGN the PETITION is the important thing.

Despite press releases claiming disappointment on losing the grant funding and vague commitments to the future of the sea lido. Unfortunately this was not backed up by match funding in the last round of grants. Enthuastic rhetoric aside the reality was an immensely short sighted approach by Cornwall Council, spurning a large amount of money by not adding in some of their money a grant application that was destined to fail.

Save our lido! #Penzance #Jubileepool pic.twitter.com/i3J9QLIfEj
— Rob Simmons (@cernyw) March 18, 2014

The petition seeks a new approach where a successful bid for grant funding can be achieved by Cornwall Council putting money in as well. Please sign this, we need to pressurise Cornwall Council (and Cornwall Councilors) that people do want the pool and it needs to be funded. Please sign here.

A disappointing government response to flooding in West Cornwall

Perhaps the title is a little misleading, I certainly could write a great long post on the subject in general. If you haven't seen it already Cllr Andrew Wallis has a great blog post revealing government funding for fishermen is not in fact new at all. Other government announcements have also been tokenistic. I wrote in the Western Morning News  on the budget and the chance it was to realign priorities in general, address the unfairness in budget cuts and funding for Cornwall, I wrote that the Chancellor's budget was high time for Cameron's grand announcement that "money is no object" and government will "pick up the tab" to be turned from empty rhetoric to actual funding. This unfortunately did not happen. This post aims to deal with the response to my letter to the Prime Minister, which I have finally received. Since I wrote that on the 23rd of February, Penzance Town Council unanimously voted to support a letter to the PM roughly saying the same thing and including a call for a break water, hopefully the council gets a better reply.

My email was quickly shuffled from the Prime Minister's office to DEFRA, which I think was disappointing as I had not only addressed the question of flood defences and funding but also Penzance's rail link. If I was disappointed that neither the PM nor the Department of Transport would consider making our rail line more resilient, then that was frame of mind I could keep for the subsequent reply. It soon starts:

"As I am sure you will appreciate, we have received exceptionally high volumes of correspondence relating to the current flooding incidents. Unfortunately it will not be possible to provide a personal response to every letter as we are focusing our efforts on the recovery. However, I hope this information on the Government’s response is useful."

Then goes on to make various generic points about the flooding situation, in what is no doubt a stock reply. Quiet why it took a whole month to get such an identikit email, I'm not sure....

It carries on, explaining about the number of properties and farmland protected from flooding. A quizzical reference: "military personnel are still on standby" (when was that written!?!), government commitments to flood defences and "erosion risk management". It's hard to criticise any of it government pronouncements and government action are often two different things, but until the latter becomes the former, who knows what might happen? But there are a number of absences in the reply. There is not one mention of our rail line or transport infrastructure at all. As we've seen in the last weeks there have been adequate government pronouncements on flood defences, protecting homes but precious little -if anything- on sea defences. Everything is about protecting inland areas (quite rightly) but nothing for the coast.

Despite having two of Cornwall's MPs in DEFRA, this is the level of thought and attention that goes into policy in Cornwall. No thought at all to how extreme weather effects coastal communities. No real intent to think of it either. No flexibility that parts of the UK might need more thinking or perhaps a bespoke solution. Much like the email reply, the government's response to flooding is dated, not really relevant to Cornwall and lacks any desire to address these issues.

Pictures: Penzance beach clean up success

A fantastic turn out in wet weather! The beach certainly looks a great deal better for it. The amount of rubbish removed is testament to that. The day was only marred by Cornwall Council's hardy and reliable traffic wardens who ticketed unsuspected beach cleaners.

Below is some of the pictures of the clean up near Wherrytown. A small group of us cleaned up rubbish, dragged tyres, a crab pot and lobster pot off the beach. Also Cornwall Councillor Jim McKenna and myself dragged a large tangle of fishing net also pictured. Goes to show how hard these storms effect our fishing industry.

Wet and cold I trudged back home warmed by the community spirit of this great town. A pleasure to play a small part.

An open letter to the PM, on the help we need for our rail line and Jubilee Pool

Dear Prime Minister, 

I am writing to highlight the damage done by the recent storms in West Cornwall. I urge your government to do more to help and prove that we are Open For Business.

As well as the significant damage at Dawlish, there has also been damage to the Penzance - St Erth part of the train line resulting in a temporary closure. There has been no compensation offered to travellers and no sign that government is aware of the problem nor signs it is working to increase future resilience.

Penzance’s iconic Jubilee Pool, has also suffered damage from the storms. Unfortunately there are fears that this will not be reopened in the summer season. Having such a prominent seafront feature closed will no doubt be detrimental to both the life of the town and tourism.

If government will indeed ‘pick up the tab’ can the government:

•          Include West Cornwall in this?
•        Keep our train line secure from flooding?
•         Fast track money promised to repair things     like the Jubilee Pool?

Yours faithfully

Councillor Robert Simmons

Me on Channel 4 news, Cornwall Council's sandbag u turn and government help for fishermen

Following on from a series of blogs by myself about the storms and the lacklustre government response here in Cornwall (and elsewhere). I was interviewed yesterday by Channel 4 news in Newlyn. They were keen to hear my views about the response here and the hardship caused by this extreme weather. Understandably a lot of my interview was cut to make way to talk to fishermen and Nick Clegg.

Watch it here if you're interested:



I'm really glad that Channel Four took the time to come to Cornwall and highlight the damages by the storm. It certainly helps us to put pressure on government to take storm damage as seriously here as they do elsewhere. It must also be welcomed that Cornwall Council has done a u turn and rather than offering no sand bags at all will now offer them to residents for free, great news.

I also welcome Nick Clegg's half promise (interviewed after me) that fishermen will get or could get hardship payments. This would only be fair and I'm slightly puzzled why this hasn't already been raised and promised at the same time as farmer's hardship payments by Cornwall's MPs, especially Dan Rogerson and George Eustice who are now junior ministers in DEFRA who deal with fisheries.

Anyway I sincerely hope the government does take this case seriously and from reading Andrew Wallis's blog. That a strong case was made to Nick Clegg by fisherman, residents and Julian Waring from Newlyn Fishermen's Mission at Porthleven. As with promises that government will pay for damages in the storm we will wait and see what happens with hardship payments to the fishing industry.

Time to think hard about Penzance's sea defences

The news has been rife with damage and flooding to Penzance and other areaa in Mount's Bay, particularly Newlyn, Porthleven and other areas of West Cornwall.  Although it must be said that this is an extreme weather event, we need to consider the effect this is having on homes, businesses and people's lives. There is a great cost to this all and I think we need to weigh up how spending money on sea defences would save money in the long run.

Small wave hitting Penzance Prom at Wherrytown end pic.twitter.com/gE4uuna2SR
— Dick Straughan (@DickStraughan) February 5, 2014

In particular there is damage to Penzance Harbour and I think for the long term the time has come to seriously consider the benefits of an off shore breakwater. Preferable to rock armour as it would dissipate the force of the sea further out. The problem with rock armour is that it could only be built so high and then waves above that height still impact with full force into the quay (or more properly quays). Is it significant that sections of the South Pier damaged in the storms are already dressed with rock armour?...

As the Royal Haskoning identified even full rock armour doesn't allow for continuous operation of the harbour unlike a breakwater which would. Further to quote:

"It is not, therefore, considered that the structural integrity of the harbour wall will be significantly improved by the construction of rock armour." 

 Although the costs of this would be considerable, what would the cost be of the pieces of the harbour being smashed off like happened in Lamorna over night. The cheaper option of rock armour has been proposed a few times for Penzance, but in the long term it doesn't seem cost effective. Especially when we consider the limited protection it offers and the fact it makes maintenance of the existing structures, shall we say difficult? Or is the right word expensive?

In the short term, the Royal Haskoning report identified significant works that needed to be done in the harbour. Despite this being from a survey in January last year and their report being published in March 2013 this as far as I am aware has not happened. The findings were that urgent work was needed. Masonry was missing, areas needed repointing, staples holding blocks together were rusted and needed replacing and worryingly that there were voids. Also that there was evidence Lighthouse Pier was subsiding and moving away from the adjoining South Pier. These are all the kinds of things that need to be kept on top of. It is troubling that it takes an external consultants to come to a harbour owned by Cornwall Council to point out the need for this work.

The vital harbour aside, perhaps we need to consider also protection of the wider seafront. There is major damage to sections of the prom from the recent storm. It is clear large sections will have to be rebuilt. Again what is the cost? Also the wider costs of houses flooding at the bottom of Morrab Road and the disruption of the road along the prom closing and not for the first time this month. Perhaps in the future it might be better to construct the surface of the promenade with more durable materials, particularly the tiles near the Wherrytown end.  Unfortunately there are not studies and various pushes in the past to protect the prom area from the sea. Work is needed in this regard.

I know it's a tough call in these times when the government is reining in spending. But we need to look to the future and what the cost of our actions will be to the next generation. The time has come to think big, to realise that in the long terms spending now will save money in the future and will protect us.