Plans to scrap developments to south of Truro possibly to be scrapped

Dear Letter's editor,

I was pleased to hear that proposals to build 6400 houses, and a new bypass south of Truro may be scrapped (West Briton 8.4.2010). This was a great birthday present for me last Thursday, as well as pleasing news to all of us who do not want to see the environment of Cornwall ruined by excessive development. Let us hope that the council and the new national government cannot find any reasons for implementing the plan. Any development, where possible, must be carried out on ‘brown field sites’, and new housing is built primarily for the local population i.e. affordable, and preferably for rent for the thousands on the housing waiting list.

I was shocked, as indeed many other readers were, by the cost of the plan. It would be quite funny at how public servants get taken for a ride by various
con sultants (sic) if it not so gravely concerning that the bill is paid by us as taxpayers.

While we read that St Julia’s Hospice has to go out shaking tins to find £1 million to provide services for terminally ill people, the tax payer has to fork out over £400,000 for a bunch of con sultants to draw up the Threemilestone Area Action Plan. A straw poll of West Briton readers could easily have told the council that actually local people did not want this development, and subsequently we could have given the money, and similar wasteful expenditure, to Cornwall Hospice Care, other worthwhile causes, and/or at the very least built some affordable homes in our villages and towns.

The misuse of con sultants is well documented in Private Eye and other worthy journals. I am not sure if the excessive use of con sultants has been primarily a New Labour phenomenon (although the financial crunch has forced them to pledge to cut back on this habit–well we’ll see!) or purely a trend of modern management theory (i.e. pass the buck to avoid the blame when it all goes pear shaped). Whichever, or whether it is a mixture of the two, let us hope the council is now shamed into not using consultants anymore, and using its (often highly paid) officers and elected councillors to use their skills, knowledge and experience to make decisions (i.e. what they are paid and/or elected for). We can then use the decreasing amount of public money available to fund useful and sustainable projects which benefit ordinary local people. Anyway…. as your Green MP-that would be what I would tell them they should do!