Pre 2021-11-01 meeting notes for a presentation to the Perranzabuloe Parish Council to give them an update:
Getting Here
We started in late 2017, getting our required formal Cornwall Council Designation on the 29th November 2017.
Our 2018 to 2019 meetings tended to have 10 or more members of the Steering Group and 2 or 3 others.
Early meetings we had 20+ attendees and most of the 14 Steering Group members.
Over time, we lost several key contributors, and took on some key consultants who’s contributions have been
invaluable. Most important has been Stuart Todd of Stuart Todd Associates Ltd & Lucy Wilson Richards of Tirwel.
We’ve had consistent, support and help from our Perranzabuloe Parish Council, in particular the parish clerk,
Tatiana Cant.
We’ve had amazing support, work, help and input from so many.
The core group of volunteers that attended almost all meetings since 2017, that have done the most work, are
listed, alphabetically below. If this core had not stuck with it, the project would have collapse.
o Kevin Havill
o Phil Moore
o Phillip Henwood
o Roger Kayes
o Rory Jenkins
o William Rogers
Achievement Summary
An NDP lays out what we can evidence the community wants in terms of nudging the planning process to protect what the
community values and sees as special.
It looks to enhance existing provision of facilities and assets and provide support for additional facilities and development
subject to being a response to demand and local needs, while ensuring that there is no adverse impact on the things that
are valued the most in our natural and built environments.
The main 120 page document covers many themes including:
Climate Change
Sustainable Development
Waste, including waste water
Design
Natural Environment, Landscape and Coastal Management
Identifying and protecting the environment, including,
Settlement gaps & green buffers
Local Green Spaces, Views & Vistas
Coastal Change Management Plan
Heritage Assets and the Historic Environment. Identifying and giving protection to these.
Traffic & Transport including parking
Business, Employment and Retail, including Tourism
Headline Policies
Primary Residence Policy
If successful, on for the Parish Council planning group to keep an eye on re applications.
Settlement Boundaries around Perranporth, Bolingey & Goonhavern.
Development outside of these areas will meet more challenging requirements.
Policy 8 in the Cornwall Local Plan says 6+ dwellings must contribute toward affordable housing need. From 6‐10 units, a
financial contribution in lieu of on‐site provision will be acceptable, from 11 upwards, must contribute to meeting affordable
housing.
Policy 9, Rural Exceptions Sites, there is no size limit to which the policy for 50% affordable housing applies.
Headline Documents
Perranzabuloe Design Code
Perranporth Strategic Masterplan
All Policies
The 120 page main document has all of the detail.
The consultation summary leaflet has a cut down version of all the policies, where the section headings are:
• Sustainable Development
• Housing
• Natural Environment, Landscape and Coastal Management
• Energy and Wastewater
• Traffic and Transport
• Leisure & Wellbeing
• Heritage Assets and the Historic Environment
• Business, Employment and Retail
• Tourism
We know this is taking up everybody’s evening, so we hope this meeting shouldn’t take up more than about half an hour.
It’s greatto be able to give you an update.
I know that William has been giving the parish council regular updates, but it’s alwaysgood to have a bit moredialogueand answer any questions you might have.
From our side, I’m the NDP chairman.
Kevin Havill is our our vice-chairman & head of BETI (Business, Employment Transport & Infrastructure)
William is our key parish council representative, the NDP secretary, who has kept the admin side of things together, including all the finances where he has managed to get more grants than we all expected.
Prof Phil Moore is a keymember of our BETI and Steering Group.
Roger Kayes, the head of our housing group wasn’t able to make the meeting
& Christine Ashby Zwozdiak head of our Environment & Heritage group has had to step back from the entire NDP due to personal circumstances.
I know Tatiana has been involved in NDPs elsewhere, so I’m sure she’ll only smile when I say that like many projects, the amount of work needed, the depths of detail required and technical challenges has been more than many expected.
In our early meetings we considered a fast tack NDP, but the clear majority of those involved wanted a plan that has much substance as sensibly possible. For example, we firmly believe our plan is going to cover more areas, in more detail than the excellent St Agnes Plan. The scale and complexity of this project should not be under estimated by the Parish Council.
In relation to the St Agnes plan, if we look at their time scales, from the time of their first public surveysto having the draft plan to start the end consultation steps, we are looking set to do it in a month less than St Agnes took. We are on track to publicise the draft in May of this year.
Similar to St Agnes we have split the NDP into 3 main areas:
Housing
Environment & Heritage
BETI (Business, Employment, Transport & Infrastructure)
I have shared our current central document to Sam, Peter & Tatiana. These 110 pages link into a lot more documents, but it’s the core bit where we welcome any feedback and other comments.
I’ve also had a look at NDP progress in Cornwall. From Cornwall Council data, so far two thirds of Cornwall are covered by NDPs, with one third of these designated areas having so far been adopted (38 of the 138 designated areas have adopted NDPs) or started the final statutory stages.
In terms of comparing our progress to other areas, we are in the same broad time scale as other, non fast track, NDPs. We have had a team of over 15 and regularly had members of the public attend meetings drop down to only 6 that reliably attend meetings. It’s a long time since we’ve had more than 6 people at a Steering Group meeting.
We lost a key group lead, Christine, but luckily her and the rest of the group had already done the lions share of the work, so were able to bring in a Cornwall Council recommended external consultant to finish off and wrap up Environment & Heritage, this seems to be working really well.
We are continually very mindful that at any time a developer could put in a substantial application before our NDP that will have Settlement Boundaries and a Primary Residence Policy. For example if a developer for the Holywell Bay ex military land puts in a new application, post our NDP reaching a critical stage, it could mean it is rejected or require fundamental alteration, more towards what people in the parish want.
Our progress to date has only been because of phenomenal amounts of work from the team of volunteers, with the support we have had from Cornwall Council and the parish council.
In terms of headline areas the NDP is set to cover,
for Housing,
settlement boundaries & a
Primary Residence Policy and an
associated Design Guide & Design Codes.
for Environment & Heritage, our initial public surveys and public meetings showed consistent strong support to protect these:
is the landscape and environment that is the main reason people wish to live and work here.
so the hundreds of hours of Local Landscape Character Assessments (LLCA), and other work has identified much of the environment & heritage assets the parish has, so as to give them greater protection.
for BETI (Business, Employment, Transport & Infrastructure) as we have Kevin and Phil from that group here, I’ll hand over to them.
We had an amazing response rate. 888 responses, so just over 30% of the 2903 surveys sent out. This is high for a Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP) project and thanks to not only our amazing community but all who are working on and helping with our parishes NDP project.
We held 2 public meetings, one in Goonhavern Village Hall at 7:30pm on Tuesday the 15th of October and one in the Perranporth Memorial Hall, also at 7:30pm, on Wednesday the 16th of October.
The meeting in Goonhavern had about 10 people who were not part of the NDP Steering Group and the Perranporth meeting about 40.
An overall summary was given, followed by a summary from each of the group leads:
Christine, head of the Environment & Heritage Group (PDF presentation)
Roger, head of our Housing Group (
Kevin, head of the Business, Employment, Transport & Infrastructure (BETI) Group.
Then the prize draw (1 in Goonhavern, 2 in Perranporth).
General Statistics by Rory Jenkins (current chairman)
Slightly more women responded than men. 55% women.
Most respondents were 36 or older.
Most responses from Perranporth > Goonhavern > Bolingey > Rose before the other hamlets. So, in keeping with the sizes of our main settlements.
Most respondents live in a house, not a flat.
Most respondents are owner occupiers, not tenants or in social housing.
Massive range of groups, where the most popular were:
Fitness clubs & classes 21% >
Pilates & Yoga 20% >
Surfing community 15% >
Surf Life Saving Club 13% >
local churches 15 %>
Rugby Club 9%
BUT also 12% said not groups. This could mean that there are isolated people in our community we could all do more to engage with.
Massive use of community facilities with the most popular being:
Local Shops 91% in general and specifically the Chemist 90%, Local supermarkets 90%, the Garden Centre 78%, Restaurants 76%, Pubs 76%, the Petrol Station 75%, Post Office 75%, Cafes 74% and Take away 61%.
Also 59% of respondents use Public Conveniences in the parish
Top priorities were given as:
Medical Facilities
Environment
Road Safety
Environment & Heritage Group
Christine talked visitors through the her Environment & Heritage presentation (this is a large PDF), including taking questions from the audience as they arose. In particular, in both Goonhavern and Perranporth there was quite a detailed discussion about the planned roll out of 5G and how this could have a negative impact on the environment.
Overall there was exceptionally strong support for the issues the questions asked about.
It is important that we identify, protect and enhance buffer areas that we wish to retain as our green spaces for the use of wildlife and the Community.
Existing trees, woodland, hedgerows and Cornish hedges should be retained, conserved and enhanced in order to maintain and create effective wildlife habitats and corridors.
It is important that our villages and hamlets retain their unique and distinctive characteristics as separate and individual settlements.
The retention and preservation of important panoramic landscape views and vistas is key to maintaining and enhancing landscape integrity.
The infrastructure for delivering 5G, with the benefit of around 10 times current mobile data speeds, should not result in the removal of, or damage to, existing trees, hedgerows, wildlife areas and wildlife corridors.
All new developments should include integral bio-diversity enhancement measures such as bird boxes/bee bricks and open sustainable drainage systems to attract and protect wildlife as a
planning condition.
As shown by this bar chart, well over 90% responded with either Strongly Agree or Agree to each question:
Housing Group
Roger, head of the Housing Group, focused on those issues most likely to have a direct impact on the end NDP document.
He had a different presentation for Goonhavern and Perranporth, as for each he compared the parish results, with the results from those from each of these areas. In general there was no significant difference between responses from these areas and the general response. But without looking you don’t find that sort of thing out !
Perranporth Housing presentation (large PDF) The Perranporth presentation included a question for the audience on a Primary Residency Policy (PRP) or not.
At both locations, there were questions and discussions around what the audience understood by the housing questions in the survey. There was also discussion about creating Settlement Boundaries around Perranporth and Goonhavern and whether those present did or didn’t want our end NDP to have a Primary Residency Policy (PRP) or not.
Post the Perranporth discussion around PRP a show of hands poll of the audience had:
17 Strong yes
7 Yes
1 Neutral
2 No
1 Strong no
(Excluding members of the NDP Steering Group, the Perranporth meeting had just under 40 parishioners.)
There were many audience comments relating to PRP including (paraphrased):
The local estate agents have lists of those looking for housing in the parish and roughly half of these are from beyond the parish and appear to be those looking for holiday homes / second homes / to let out to holiday maker properties.
Tywarnhayle Road has sections of the road, where out of season many properties have no night time lights on in season midweek late night noise is a problem for those who have to get up for work.
In other areas properties have returned to being full time occupied from being holiday let properties.
There is a concern that if St Agnes and Crantock have PRPs, then Perranporth will be targeted by developers and in general for those looking for non primary residence properties.
Business, Employment, Transport & Infrastructure (BETI) Group
Kevin, head of the Business, Employment, Transport & Infrastructure (BETI) Group went through a detailed BETI presentation on many of the BETI questions and their responses.
Some summary points that I (Rory, NDP chairman) picked up:
Want more wind and solar power, but not more solar farms.
Against more AirBnB, holiday houses, second homes & static caravans, but appreciate the benefit of tourism and want a longer season, more hotels.
Want an event space and more cultural events.
Want to keep and expand the employment base, especially new technology and year round employment.
There’s a strong desire for more studios and workshops, shared workspaces, and year round traders, but less appetite for more shops and offices.
Want better bus and general public transport improvements.
Very positive about improving and enhancing cycling within and beyond the parish (links).
Strong support for 20mph in residential areas.
Very strong support for the reinstatement of Tamblyn Way steps down to the beach from Droskyn.
Very strong support to improve the range of medical, health and educational resources in the parish.
Exceptionally strong support for the concept that future development should not increase the risk of flooding.
A strong feeling that there is a good quality of life in the parish, but that there is potential to make this even better.
We then had the prize draw
What next ?
The Steering Group, who are always keen to have more volunteers, so if anybody feels they can help in any way, please get in touch, will be digging more into the survey results, undertaking a Survey of local businesses, investigating and consulting further.
All of this will then turn into a draft Neighbourhood Plan for our parish.
This is then shared with you and put to a list of statutory consultees including Cornwall Council
Once any feedback is with us and implemented, it goes to an independent examiner, who will give us feedback on whether the policies we want, as we lay them out, sit within existing national and Cornwall legislation.
Once any feedback from the examiner is dealt with it goes to a public referendum and if majority accepted it becomes adopted.
The Neighbourhood Development Plan team are holding 2 public events to give a summary of the 888 surveys returned. Please come along to one or both of these events:
Tue 15th Oct, 7:30pm at Goonhavern Village Hall
Wed 16th Oct, 7:30pm at Perranporth Memorial Hall.
These events have been promoted by:
Our Facebook page and the 2 main Facebook groups for the parish.
A Mailchimp e-mailshot was sent out – 9 October 2019 at 6:04 pm to 153 recipients (71.8% opened it.)
Posters were done (a different one was done for Goonhavern Vs Perranporth – thumbnails above.
– these posters were put on the parish notice boards, the shop (which is also the Post Office) in Goonhavern. In Perranporth, the butchers, several cafe’s and the post office
As per publicising the survey, the meetings to discuss the results were the cover of the “Around Piran” magazine:
All 3 events increased the number of people who signed up to be kept updated as to progress. The details were added to our Mailchimp e-mailing list. Tally of paper sign up forms from these events
Goonhavern, 20 sign up forms
Perranporth, 59 sign up forms
Chiverton, no sign up forms.
This took our e-mail list (Mailchimp) from 33 to 127 and within a few days of the evnts 135. – 2023 update: The Mailchimp mailing list grew steadily to 153 recipients being email notified re the October 2019 meetings to discuss the initial survey findings.
The main notes used for the presentation done at these events are below.
A redacted example of the sign up form is below:
As expected given that Perranporth it’s the largest settlement in the parish, this was the most attended event of the 3:
Presentation Notes used for these events:
Can everybody hear me?
I’m Rory, current chair of the Neighbourhood Development Plan team for this parish.
William, thankyou for the health and safety information.
Michael, thankyou for the ongoing support you and the rest of the parish council are giving our Neighbourhood Development Plan and it’s team of volunteers.
BUT MOSTLY, thankyou to everybody for coming along this evening.
The format of this evening is going to be that:
I’m going to outline what a Neighbourhood Development Plan is and why we believe we should have one.
Then the heads of the 3 groups we have are going to talk about what they hope an Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP) might achieve in relation to their specific areas which are:
Environment & Heritage
Business, Employment, Transport & Infrastructure (BETI)
Housing
Then we’ll have a general questions session before we split up into:
over here for general NDP questions,
over there for Environment & Heritage
over there for BETI, and
over there for Housing.
OK, so what is a Neighbourhood Development Plan
It’s a mechanism for local communities to influence planning decisions where they live and work.
At the top, central government determines a top tier of policies and plans for developments.
Then, below that, the likes of Cornwall Council can create (and have created) a regional local plan.
Then, within the constraints of both the national and regional policies we can create an NDP for the very local level.
A key point here is that we must stick within the national and local policies and plans.
Once we have an NDP for our parish, planning decisions will have to consider our NDP.
To create an NDP:
We have to create a Steering Group, which we’ve done.
We have to get the OK from the parish council and Cornwall Council, which we’ve done.
We have to create awareness which we are doing with the social media, a Website, the leaflets, posters …
The next steps are to:
See who else wants to be involved
Create and send out a questionnaire of what people who live and work in the parish want.
Collate the responses and make this into a proposed NDP.
Have a referendum on this proposed NDP.
If majority yes, submit it for formal approval into the planning system.
This is likely to take about 18 months, possibly 2 years, from now.
We need not only as many peoples views on issues we might be able to influence via an NDP but people who can help with the work. On a permanent or temporary basis. All help is great. We’re a bunch of unpaid, diverse enthusiastic volunteers.
So that’s a bit about what a Neighbourhood Development Plan is, why do we think we should have one?
Firstly, an NDP can steering some aspects of developments towards what the community wants. For example, protecting the environment and natural landscape, the impact on business and other infrastructure and where developments happen.
Two Cornwall examples of this are:
1st Example. St Ives managed to put in a Second Homes policy into their NDP. This will reduced developers focusing on projects targeting those who have no plan to live full time in St Ives.
2nd Example. Earlier I said an NDP sits below national and regional policy. A lot of you have probably heard that in Crantock a lot of people are upset that their NDP did not stop the approval of an expansion of an already approved development. Yes, that’s true, because of higher level legislation, but what I didn’t realise until I asked Roger, the lead of our housing team, is that because of what is in their NDP the developer was required to increase the Affordable Housing provision from 30% to 50%. For me, that’s a positive for Crantock.
Secondly, as you can gather from these 2 examples, an NDP can put onerous and potentially costly requirements on developers.
That means that if our parish does not have an NDP, but others do, developers have the potential to make more money in our parish and may therefore target our parish. Surrounding parishes either have or are are well on their way to having an NDP.
Thirdly, from the 1st of January 2019 there is going to be a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) of up to £100 per square meter floorspace. If our parish has an NDP, the parish council will get 25% of this to spend in the parish. If we don’t have an NDP the parish council will get 15%, so 10% less.
– if our NDP includes a ‘second-homes restriction policy’ CIL will drop to zero.
Forth. This project is likely to throw up other issues that, based on what has happened with other NDP projects, leads to a group forming and taking this on.
Quick Summary
An NDP can’t stop development it can nudge it towards what we want.
So lets find out what our community wants.
Then lets work out, from this what can be put in our Neighbourhood Development Plan.
Next up are the heads of our current groups:
Christine for Environment & Heritage
Kevin for BETI – Business, Employment, Transport & Infrastructure
Pre meeting presentation notes by Rory (that were largely followed in the meetings)
I’m Rory, current chair of the Neighbourhood Development Plan team for this parish.
William, thankyou for the health and safety information.
Michael, thankyou for the ongoing support you and the rest of the parish council are giving our Neighbourhood Development Plan and it’s team of volunteers.
BUT MOSTLY, thankyou to everybody for coming along this evening.
The format of this evening is going to be that:
I’m going to outline what a Neighbourhood Development Plan is and why we believe we should have one.
Then the heads of the 3 groups we have are going to talk about what they hope an Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP) might achieve in relation to their specific areas which are:
Environment & Heritage
Business, Employment, Transport & Infrastructure (BETI)
Housing
Then we’ll have a general questions session before we split up into:
over here for general NDP questions,
over there for Environment & Heritage
over there for BETI, and
over there for Housing.
OK, so what is a Neighbourhood Development Plan
It’s a mechanism for local communities to influence planning decisions where they live and work.
At the top, central government determines a top tier of policies and plans for developments.
Then, below that, the likes of Cornwall Council can create (and have created) a regional local plan.
Then, within the constraints of both the national and regional policies we can create an NDP for the very local level.
A key point here is that we must stick within the national and local policies and plans.
Once we have an NDP for our parish, planning decisions will have to consider our NDP.
To create an NDP:
We have to create a Steering Group, which we’ve done.
We have to get the OK from the parish council and Cornwall Council, which we’ve done.
We have to create awareness which we are doing with the social media, a Website, the leaflets, posters …
The next steps are to:
See who else wants to be involved
Create and send out a questionnaire of what people who live and work in the parish want.
Collate the responses and make this into a proposed NDP.
Have a referendum on this proposed NDP.
If majority yes, submit it for formal approval into the planning system.
This is likely to take about 18 months, possibly 2 years, from now.
We need not only as many peoples views on issues we might be able to influence via an NDP but people who can help with the work. On a permanent or temporary basis. All help is great. We’re a bunch of unpaid, diverse enthusiastic volunteers.
So that’s a bit about what a Neighbourhood Development Plan is, why do we think we should have one?
Firstly, an NDP can steering some aspects of developments towards what the community wants. For example, protecting the environment and natural landscape, the impact on business and other infrastructure and where developments happen.
Two Cornwall examples of this are:
1st Example. St Ives managed to put in a Second Homes policy into their NDP. This will reduced developers focusing on projects targeting those who have no plan to live full time in St Ives.
2nd Example. Earlier I said an NDP sits below national and regional policy. A lot of you have probably heard that in Crantock a lot of people are upset that their NDP did not stop the approval of an expansion of an already approved development. Yes, that’s true, because of higher level legislation, but what I didn’t realise until I asked Roger, the lead of our housing team, is that because of what is in their NDP the developer was required to increase the Affordable Housing provision from 30% to 50%. For me, that’s a positive for Crantock.
Secondly, as you can gather from these 2 examples, an NDP can put onerous and potentially costly requirements on developers.
That means that if our parish does not have an NDP, but others do, developers have the potential to make more money in our parish and may therefore target our parish. Surrounding parishes either have or are are well on their way to having an NDP.
Thirdly, from the 1st of January 2019 there is going to be a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) of up to £100 per square meter floorspace. If our parish has an NDP, the parish council will get 25% of this to spend in the parish. If we don’t have an NDP the parish council will get 15%, so 10% less.
– if our NDP includes a ‘second-homes restriction policy’ CIL will drop to zero.
Forth. This project is likely to throw up other issues that, based on what has happened with other NDP projects, leads to a group forming and taking this on.
Quick Summary
An NDP can’t stop development it can nudge it towards what we want.
So lets find out what our community wants.
Then lets work out, from this what can be put in our Neighbourhood Development Plan.
Next up are the heads of our current groups:
Christine for Environment & Heritage
Kevin for BETI – Business, Employment, Transport & Infrastructure
Perry Hobbs – Head of Strategic Investment Planning Richard Behan – Flood Risk Manager
Ian McFerlane – Customer Services and Network Manager
Perranzabuloe Parish Council
(PC) Councillor Steve Arthur Councillor Karen Colam
Councillor William Rogers
Perranzabuloe Neighbourhood Plan (NDP)
Rory Jenkins
Kevin Havill
Background:
The meeting had been arranged by William Rogers as a chance for both the PC and NDP understand more about the issues facing SWW to deliver its responsibilities for waste water collection and treatment. Whether the current infrastructure is sufficient, what improvements are necessary and whether there is capacity to collect and treat more particularly if there is to be more residential development in the parish.
All parties were aware of problems including flooding of Thywanhale Square and overloading of the pumping station on Station Road.
The PC and NDP explained that clean sea and stream water all year round is vital for safety and amenity of visitors and all year round residents alike. The local economy is largely built on tourism with the beach and water sport as the central theme. Many residents have chosen the area because of the landscape and lifestyle. Awareness to environmental issues is growing illustrated by the popular designation of the Perranporth as a plastic free zone.
Responsibilities:
SWW explained that responsibilities for the flooding management collection of foul and surface water are split between:
Environment Agency – Sea and rivers
Cornwall Council (highways) – Highways
SWW – Sewers, surface water from hardstanding within the curtilage of properties
Defra – A government regularity authority with responsibilities to monitor water and sea water quality including The Bathing Water Directive
System:
Perranporth – Surface Water and sewerage drains to the pumping station on Station Road from where it is pumped to Droskyn, then to a treatment works at Cligga and with a discharge of treated water into the sea.
Goonhavern – Has its own treatment works and the treated water discharge goes into streams.
The historic network was built in the anticipation that rain water would dilute effluent before it being run into the sea. The Clean Sweep policy introduced 18 years ago has been built on the basis that raw waste should not enter the rivers or sea but be treated first.
Problems arise primarily because water enters the SWW system from surface run off such as highways (which could be discharged into streams and rivers – for example Station Road) and from historic mine shafts and addits (for example Thywanhale Square). These extraordinary loads stretch the pumping station in Perranporth beyond its capacity and can cause outflows of untreated effluent. SWW has permits for a limited number of Combined Sewage Outflows (CSOs) at designated points and has obligations to both report incidents to the Environment Agency and monitor water quality on a continuous basis.
For new development it is now theoretically required that surface water does not flow offsite into the sewerage system thereby reducing the volumes pumped to treatment works. The historic network remains though and Cornwall Council did not take the opportunity to rectify local problems on Station Road from highway run off when the Environment Agency undertook flood management works a few years ago. In terms of new developments, these often manage to present a case that allows them to not deal with surface water onsite, but discharge it into the existing system.
Specific problems around Bolenna Park and Hendrawna Lane were discussed and SWW will investigate further.
The tankering of waste from Station Road to Droskyn over the recent winter had been as a response to the broken main between the two locations on St Georges Hill. This main has now been repaired.
Planning Process
SWW explained that are not a statutory consultee in the planning process. They are consulted but their views can be overruled. The grant of planning permission gives property owns the right to connect and SWW are obliged to provide service irrespective of whether their infrastructure is adequate.
All the respective agencies hold duty of care responsibilities and issues arising from the historic networks along the North Coast are well known. A long term Drainage and Waste Water Plan is being compiled and to cover a future 25 year period, however, this plan won’t be ready until 2022.
The PC and NDP expressed the view that a large, probably majority, proportion of residents would like to prevent further development because of inadequacies in the current infrastructure. SWW responded that in their experience using capacity problems to halt development rarely works in the long term. However they were keen to promote that the NDP include policies to tackle all drainage issues with future development targets to be linked to completed improvements.
In short the Perranporth pumping and treatment works could support future development IF there was proper separation of surface run off from household waste as could Goonhavern to a lessor extent but which benefits from an easier topography.
An example of a multi authority agreement known as Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Llanelli was discussed. Under this agreement developers are required to make provision for the removal of storm water from the system before new foul water is introduced. This model could be on a 1:1 or possibly a 2:1 ratio basis.
Funding for improvements works could come from the following sources:
Central Government – Flooding and Coastal Defence Projects Community Infrastructure Levy – Cornwall Council
Highways – Cornwall Council
Next Steps
SWW water to provide more information of the Llanelli MOU and to investigate further problems at Bolenna and Hendrawna
SWW to revert on why the spill alert system only works during the bathing season and not year round.
PC to discuss
NDP to develop draft policies for community feedback
Meeting with Guy Thomas, the Communities Area Manager at Cornwall Council
Monday 5th February 2018
Rory Jenkins & William Rogers from the Perranzabuloe NDP
Given the progress that Cornwall Council has accepted that Perranzabuloe has ‘Designated Area Status’ for a NDP, that we have a Steering Group and Focus Groups, it seemed appropriate to have an update with Guy Thomas. He will be one of our primary contacts in Cornwall Council for the duration of the project.
Rory (NDP Chairperson) and William (NDP Secretary) met Guy at the Cornwall Council offices in Truro.
From having been involved with many NDP’s around Cornwall Guy had the following advice:
Spread the load. If the project is taken on by too small a group, this has elsewhere lead to it stalling or collapsing.
St Agnes have stood out for their level of on-going information to their community. Their almost monthly updates to the community is yielding dividends with them typically getting around 20% respondent rates to their consultations. This is apparently high.
Don’t attempt community consultation in the holidays. Spring and Autumn work well.
Always keep evidence of all engagement and responses. Both the quantity and the quality. Without the final NDP being backed by evidence of being the wishes of the community it won’t get through
If we feel we might need external experts, ask Guy and his team first. They might have the skills we need, for free or cheaper than elsewhere. Or they might know where best to get the best skills at the best price.
Immogen and her team is their expert on policy. So not only can she help with what we can and can’t influence, she will also be there to help write up the NDP so that it fits with existing planning policy.
Progressing this, Guy suggested the following 2018 time scale.
Feb / March
Engage with the community to say that work has started on a NDP. Explain what this is. Say we want everybody’s views, input, help etc. Give contact details. (Website, Facebook, email list, notice boards). Say that from the initial group and meetings, which we hope will grow as more learn about it, the initial TOP 5 issues are …… Ask what they think about these. Ask if what issues, if any, they would put instead of any of these issues. Have it so that responses are dropped back to drop off points at local shops, pubs etc.
Late April / May
Have the first community engagement meetings. Having these where the community naturally meet apparently works well. eg a local pub.
This would involve the first questionaire to establish top concerns.
June
Get together events.
July & August
Consolidate and analyse the responses.
September
Use the analysed responses to start a second round of questions and engagement.
In relation to the overall plan and next stages, Guy in particular mentioned the Consultation and Engagement Toolkit and the Project Plan links which are to a PDF and an Excel template:
– Project Planning – PDF
– Project Plan Template – Excel (which William has already started looking at)
