The Latest from Your Parish Councillor - Martin Corney (Parish Pump - December 2016)

As I write this the Parish Council have just received proper legal advice on the correct procedure for leasing Millennium House to any organisation such as Pensilva Community Association. By the time you read this the Parish Council will have held an EGM to discuss this legal advice and decide the way forward for Millennium House which is still being funded as a community centre by more than half of the Parish Council precept (the Parish Council part of our council tax). The Parish Council is also in the process of setting next year's precept.

If there is a demand for it, I am thinking of providing free guidance in the community centre to people who would like to use a computer for basic things like sending emails and searching for information on the internet but don't know how. My elderly father has just worked out how to order his regular NHS prescription using the internet, which saves him a trip to his GP practice. I imagine that many in the parish could benefit from this service. If you would like to take advantage of this offer, please contact me and I will make arrangements in the new year.

Don’t forget the parish website st-ive-parishcouncil.gov.uk with council meeting agendas and minutes; also downloadable copies of the Parish Pump. For those of you who do Facebook, our St Ive Parish Council page is still being updated with parish news. Phone me, email me on martin.corney@btinternet.com or "martin corney blog st ive" in search engines will find my blogs for you to comment on this article and other gems.

The Latest from Your Parish Councillor - Martin Corney (Parish Pump - November 2016)

To continue last months planning news, plans for the Butchers Arms to be reopened supported by two retail units between the pub and the garage in St Ive have not been supported by St Ive Parish Council. For (PA16/07605) the Council has serious concerns that; The proposed refurbishment and extension of the pub does not reflect the Listed Premises or the historic nature of the immediate area. The large extension to the premises would be better sited around the side. No Business Plan was provided with this application. Originally the income raised from the sale/lease of the retail units and accommodation was to refurbish and subsidise the pub. For (PA16/07606) the Commercial units do not reflect the Listed Premises or historic nature of immediate area. This development is overbearing on the Listed Premises. The completion of the refurbishment and extension of the Pub is reliant on the revenue raised from the Commercial Units.

Vandalism is becoming a problem around Millennium House. Several outside lights, provided for the safety of our community centre users, have been deliberately smashed. The replacement of these lights is not covered by insurance since the value is below our surcharge, so we all have to pay extra on our community charge. There is also a problem with litter being deliberately thrown out of cars most evenings in the car park. We will be taking extra security measures and will prosecute offenders.

Don’t forget the parish website st-ive-parishcouncil.gov.uk with council meeting agendas and minutes; also downloadable copies of the Parish Pump. For those of you who do Facebook, our St Ive Parish Council page is still being updated with parish news. Phone me, email me on martin.corney@btinternet.com or "martin corney blog st ive" in search engines will find my blogs for you to comment on this article and other gems.

The Latest from Your Parish Councillor - Martin Corney (Parish Pump - October 2016)

There is a lot of planning news this month. Cornwall Council's planning committee has turned down the proposed estate of 46 dwellings (PA16/00182) between Pensilva industrial estate and Amanda Way. This followed the Parish Council and community view expressed at our public meeting but goes against planning officer recommendation, so will probably be appealed. Plans have been submitted (PA16/07605 & PA16/07606) for the Butchers Arms to be reopened supported by two retail units between the pub and the garage in St Ive. Diagonally opposite the pub, listed building consent (PA16/07006) has been submitted by The Emily Trust to restore The Chantry to the original configuration when it was the village rectory where Emily Hobhouse was born. Emily is probably the most famous person ever born in our parish. She is certainly as famous in South Africa for her campaign against British concentration camps of the Boer War as Florence Nightingale is over here. Many visitors should be attracted to her birth place. The final big planning application (PA16/02519/PREAPP) covers the fields behind the new Ford Close estate in St Ive and appears to extend the estate to about three or four times it's current size.


If you see a problem with potholes or other road problems you can report them directly to  Cornwall Council Highways online at http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/transport-and-streets/roads-highways-and-pavements/report-a-problem-with-a-road-highway-or-footway/ or by phone to 0300 1234 222.

Don’t forget the parish website st-ive-parishcouncil.gov.uk with council meeting agendas and minutes; also downloadable copies of the Parish Pump. For those of you who do Facebook, our St Ive Parish Council page is still being updated with parish news. Phone me, email me on martin.corney@btinternet.com or "martin corney blog st ive" in search engines will find my blogs for you to comment on this article and other gems.

The Latest from Your Parish Councillor - Martin Corney (Parish Pump - September 2016)

Last month's Pensilva Gala Day was fun. My photos of the day are on Facebook and shared to various related pages; Pensilva Carnival Week and St Ive Parish Council. A petition to save Millennium House was circulated on the day and handed in to the Parish Council. I have heard that at least one Councillor has been saying that Millennium House will close but I can assure everyone that that is not what the majority of Councillors want. There has been clarification of the process we need to follow if the management of Millennium House is to be handed over to the community. Unfortunately this means more work and more delay which is very frustrating for everyone.

I have had more complaints about dog fouling. If you have a problem with dog behaviour (noise, fouling, strays) you should contact Cornwall Council's Dog Welfare and Enforcement Service. They are available on Cornwall Council's website and email to publicprotection@cornwall.gov.uk or phone 0300 1234 212. If dogs are dangerous or in danger then you should contact the Police. Please remember that dogs are not allowed on the recreation grounds because they can deposit parasites that could be picked up by the children who play there. These parasites have been known to blind children.

Don’t forget the parish website st-ive-parishcouncil.gov.uk with council meeting agendas and minutes; also downloadable copies of the Parish Pump. For those of you who do Facebook, our St Ive Parish Council page is still being updated with parish news. Phone me, email me on martin.corney@btinternet.com or "martin corney blog st ive" in search engines will find my blogs for you to comment on this article and other gems.

The Latest from Your Parish Councillor - Martin Corney (Parish Pump - August 2016)

As the Summer holidays; with gala, carnival and fete season comes round once again, the business of the parish carries on. As ever the Parish Council is trying to save money, so we are going to mow the recreation grounds ourselves instead of putting the work out to tender.

Although Ruth Wilson is new to the Parish Council she has agreed to chair the Parks and Open Spaces Committee. As well as the usual maintenance of recreation grounds, play equipment, cemetery and bus shelters, the committee is looking at the issue of allotments. There are currently no allotments in the parish. One of the features of housing in Pensilva, and a key feature of it's World Heritage Site status, are the large garden plots associated with the miners' cottages. This obviously provided space for growing vegetables, and may be the reason we have no allotments. Maybe because of this there was no need for allotments back then. But now we have lots of new housing with small gardens, this would explain why the 2014 survey showed a demand for hundreds of allotments.

The Neighbourhood Development Plan has finally received the grant money to print copies of the survey report for those who would like a copy. We have also found out that we need to coordinate our plan with all the others in the Caradon Community Network Area in order to ensure that the Cornwall Council Local Plan targets for housing are met. If we don't then our Parish Plan will be invalid.

Don’t forget the parish website st-ive-parishcouncil.gov.uk with council meeting agendas and minutes; also downloadable copies of the Parish Pump. For those of you who do Facebook, our St Ive Parish Council page is still being updated with parish news. Phone me, email me on martin.corney@btinternet.com or "martin corney blog st ive" in search engines will find my blogs for you to comment on this article and other gems.

The Latest from Your Parish Councillor - Martin Corney (Parish Pump - July 2016)

As I write this, the tragic news of the death of Jo Cox MP is the major news item. Like all of us I was shocked and horrified at this violent political assassination, but I was surprised at the strength of own my personal reaction. As a Parish Councillor I may only be at the lowest level of the political structure, but even I have been physically assaulted, just because I was a Parish Councillor standing up for my integrity. This incident from the past clearly resonated and upset me far more than I expected. I mention this since it continues an ongoing theme of reminding everyone that Parish Councillors are all volunteers who get no financial benefit for the work they do. Why do we volunteer to be Parish Councillors? Mostly I think we want to make the community work better. We all have different ideas about what this means, but we generally agree about most things and work with integrity for everyone in the parish. For this voluntary work for the community by ordinary people we should be treated with respected.

The workload of the Parish Council has increased so I am making more use of committees to do the work and bring completed plans to the Parish Council meetings. This way we can hopefully keep the council meetings down to less than the recommended maximum time of two hours.

The slow process of transferring the management of Millennium House to PCA still continues and we now have clarification of the exact process so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

The Neighbourhood Development Plan is progressing. The Working Group met with the residents of St Ive to hear opinions about the development of the Butchers Arms supported by retail units and industrial units in the field opposite.

Don’t forget the parish website st-ive-parishcouncil.gov.uk with council meeting agendas and minutes; also downloadable copies of the Parish Pump. For those of you who do Facebook, our St Ive Parish Council page is still being updated with parish news. Phone me, email me on martin.corney@btinternet.com or "martin corney blog st ive" in search engines will find my blogs for you to comment on this article and other gems.

The Latest from Your Parish Councillor - Martin Corney (Parish Pump - June 2016)

At the Parish Council Annual General Meeting in May, I presented my Chairman's Report and was re-elected by my fellow councillors for a second year - thank you. Since the vast majority of us do not attend these meetings, I'll summarise my report here. 

Over the last year we have lost four councillors by resignation and gained four by co-option and one by election. This high turnover is regrettable, but understandable given the stress of dealing with all the issues that occur. Don't forget that all of us are volunteers on the Parish Council, giving our time to keep your community running.

The big problems over the last year have been to do with money. Parish Council reserves fell by another £9,000 continuing the trend of recent years. This brings our reserves to dangerously low levels, and we need the reserves to finance projects. Thanks to the community in St Ive we installed the fantastic new play equipment. This needed community involvement and fund raising, funding from the solar farm, and landfill funding from Viridor Credits. But we also needed our reserves to pay for the equipment up front before claiming the grant money. So you see that the Parish Council finances are key to future projects. We also need reserves for unexpected bills like the one for £18,000 from Cornwall Council for the 50% business rates discount that they decided to retrospectively to take away from us.

To save money in the future we need to lease Millennium House to Pensilva Community Association. This is a project that has been worked on for two years and is nearly finalised. This has taken a lot longer than planned, but when the users of Millennium House are running it as a community centre, without the financial support of the Parish Council everyone benefits, and the precept can be reduced.

The car park behind Millennium House is in a very bad condition. We are trying to raise funds to relay the car park, but as ever this is a slow process. There has been a bad accident when someone fell over so please be very careful.

Don’t forget the parish website st-ive-parishcouncil.gov.uk with council meeting agendas and minutes; also downloadable copies of the Parish Pump. For those of you who do Facebook, our St Ive Parish Council page is still being updated with parish news. Phone me, email me on martin.corney@btinternet.com or "martin corney blog st ive" in search engines will find my blogs for you to comment on this article and other gems.

The Latest from Your Parish Councillor - Martin Corney (Parish Pump - May 2016)

Pensilva is within two miles of the Bodmin Moor Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and so will be included in the buffer zone of the newly proposed Bodmin Dark Sky Park. The Parish Council supports this proposal as will strengthen planning regulations for a better environment and improved year round tourism. Bodmin Moor has crystal clear skies because of the prevailing winds coming over the Atlantic washing out most atmospheric dust. Cornwall Council have been putting together a bid with the technical support of Caradon Observatory at Upton Cross. The bid for Dark Sky Park status is currently at the consultation stage and will be ready to be submitted this Autumn. More details and links to the Cornwall Council information are available on the parish website.

The Parish Emergency Plan will be presented at the annual parish meeting 7.30pm 25th May. This is a plan that has been created by members of the community together with the guidance of Cornwall Council.

I've been asked to remind people that they must pick up waste from their dogs when walking them. This is a very emotional issue for many people, and now that it is mandatory for all dogs to be chipped, there is a demand from many to take the DNA profile of dogs when they are chipped so that each dog can be traced from anything they leave behind. I've also noticed that large carrier bags are being left next to the specialist dog waste bins. This is totally unnecessary since the dog waste disposal rules have changed to allow inclusion in household waste. We used to have to buy special dog waste bags from the council, to be collected on special days; this is no longer the case.


Don’t forget the parish website st-ive-parishcouncil.gov.uk with council meeting agendas and minutes; also downloadable copies of the Parish Pump. For those of you who do Facebook, our St Ive Parish Council page is still being updated with parish news. Phone me, email me on martin.corney@btinternet.com or "martin corney blog st ive" in search engines will find my blogs for you to comment on this article and other gems.

The Latest from Your Parish Councillor - Martin Corney (Parish Pump - April 2016)

I often get asked about what's happening with the Butchers Arms pub. Well, having met with the owner, members of BAPS (Butchers Arms Preservation Society), and our Cornwall Councillor, it seems that the Butchers Arms still has a future as a pub. The building is boarded up and so looks abandoned, but having seen inside, it is in a good dry condition. All the furniture, pumps and kitchen has been cleared out, but the bars, flagstones and pub signs are all still there. A lot of work needs to be done to get the pub running, but the owner will invest if someone can be found to lease the pub. BAPS are investigating options, or maybe a new landlord will step forward.

Three quarters of the Pensilva Recreation Ground East field owned by Cornwall Council and used by different parts of the community such as; the Primary School, the junior football club and others is being disposed of by Cornwall Council. Pensilva Recreation Ground charity owns the West field with the main football pitch, and a quarter of the East field. Cornwall Council are inclined to transfer the land to the Primary School in preference to the Parish Council and are not considering the Pensilva Recreation Ground charity. This seems like a bad move for the community, since both the Parish Council and the Primary School are likely to try to build on the land when short of cash. In order to preserve the land for community use it should be transferred to the charity which is obliged to keep it for recreational use in perpetuity.

It's been suggested that we should walk the Parish Paths. Does anyone want to join me inspecting our paths, especially if you know them well, as I don't know them as well as I'd like to.

Don’t forget the parish website st-ive-parishcouncil.gov.uk with council meeting agendas and minutes; also downloadable copies of the Parish Pump. For those of you who do Facebook, our St Ive Parish Council page is still being updated with parish news. Phone me, email me on martin.corney@btinternet.com or "martin corney blog st ive" in search engines will find my blogs for you to comment on this article and other gems.

The Latest from Your Parish Councillor - Martin Corney (Parish Pump - March 2016)

I was very pleased to announce at last month's Pancake Special fund-raising event that we in the St Ive Community Park Project have succeeded in getting sufficient funding for phase one, and the new play equipment is scheduled for installation this month. It should be in by Easter. This has been a steady commitment by the community over nearly two years. Although a major grant pays for most of the project, there is no way we would have got the grant without showing our dedication and real need. So well done everyone involved.

I've put graphics of potential bus shelters on the parish website and Facebook page. How many people wait at Parkfield? Is the small shelter big enough? Do we need shelters on both sides of the road?

The Neighbourhood Development Plan Working Group is back up and running again. We are putting together policies that will shape planning decisions in the parish for the next decade or more. This will mould the parish into the vision we have formed from the answers you gave to questions in the survey from way back in 2014. We will be presenting these policies in an open day for you to comment on.

Don’t forget the parish website st-ive-parishcouncil.gov.uk with council meeting agendas and minutes; also downloadable copies of the Parish Pump. For those of you who do Facebook, our St Ive Parish Council page is still being updated with parish news. Phone me, email me on martin.corney@btinternet.com or "martin corney blog st ive" in search engines will find my blogs for you to comment on this article and other gems.

The Latest from Your Parish Councillor - Martin Corney (Parish Pump - February 2016)

Well, most of you will probably have heard that the Parish Council has decided to put up the precept from £62,000 to £64,770. This wasn't what I wanted, but only two of us voted against it. I said that a whole hearted commitment to passing control of the loss making Millennium House community centre over to PCA (Pensilva Community Association) would allow us to reduce the precept to £60,000, while continuing as normal meant that we would need to increase the precept to £80,000. This was based on the budget produced by the RFO (Responsible Finance Officer). The Parish Council have chosen to follow the budget produced by the Finance and Administration Committee for running Millennium House the same as before. I hope that the next financial year works out OK. It seems that we now have to make the PCA plan work if the parish is not to eat dangerously into the reserves.

I'm very glad that the issue of bus stops and bus shelters in St Ive village has been raised. Although Pensilva had several new bus shelters added by Cornwall Council last year, St Ive only has one old shelter at Keason. The places where the bus stops through St Ive need clarifying and rationalising. It isn't safe for buses going West to stop opposite the Keason bus shelter, the stop in St Ive Parkfield is possibly not official, and the stop at the Butchers Arms may not be actually in the lay-by with the phone box.

The Butchers Arms Preservation Society have been in touch about the decision by Cornwall Council to declare a very strange part of the Butchers Arms site as an Asset of Community Value. They have divided the whole site into four and declared that only the building and part of the car park count. This apparently perverse decision is being questioned with Cornwall Council. 

Don’t forget the parish website st-ive-parishcouncil.gov.uk with council meeting agendas and minutes; also downloadable copies of the Parish Pump. For those of you who do Facebook, our St Ive Parish Council page is still being updated with parish news. Phone me, email me on martin.corney@btinternet.com or "martin corney blog st ive" in search engines will find my blogs for you to comment on this article and other gems.