7th February, 2025

Councillor John Martin – Report 07.02.25

We have published this Interim Policy Position Statement to ensure the continued delivery of new housing by providing a clear and consistent approach to assessing and making decisions on development proposals during a period where the ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’ will apply to Cornwall.

We want to ensure that new homes are delivered in the right places, and at an appropriate scale, to help meet Cornwall’s housing needs whilst we are preparing a new local plan. We’re using this statement to identify how to create sustainable new housing. This means using the vision and principles of both our existing local plan and emerging new local plan to inform how schemes are designed and determined.

Perranuthnoe are meeting with St Aubyns Estate to discuss viable housing land (Apparently there is a potential plot for 40 houses). They don’t have a good record of building affordable housing. There should be no need to change the ST Hilary NDP. But the authorities are still asking for a further contribution to housing land.

At the West Planning committee meeting on Monday all three applications were voted against the officers’ recommendation.

At County Hall there has been another Conservative member defection, which means that they no longer hold the majority. Therefore, for the next 12 weeks before the election there will be some confusion. The Liberal Democrats will have to find 3 extra representatives on committees. Similarly for the Independents.

There are five weeks before Purdah kicks in on March 14^th

The pre-election period (informally known as 'purdah') begins with the publication of the Notice of Election for an election,and runs until the election has taken place.

During this period, there is a ban in place on publicising the views of political parties, issuing press releases or promoting initiatives with quotes and photos from a particular councillor, which could be seen as unfairly promoting one political agenda over another.

The basic principle is that any activity which could call into question the council's political impartiality or give rise to criticism that public resources are being used for party political purposes or 'electioneering' is suspended for this time.

However, this does not mean that the business of the council will cease. Work to deliver services continues as normal and all enquiries made will be dealt with in the appropriate way.

Best regards.      John