The Latest from Your Parish Councillor - Martin Corney (Parish Pump - November 2015)

I want to tell you about the Caradon Community Network Area Panel this month. When Cornwall Council became a unitary authority the old Caradon District Council was abolished, but this left a big gap between the parish and town councils and the new unitary authority. This gap has been filled by community network areas; each has a panel which is the main way Cornwall Council communicates with local communities. These panels meet every two months and consist of the local Cornwall Councillors and representatives from the Town and Parish Councils. Three community network areas have been set up covering the old Caradon District Council area; Liskeard & Looe, Cornwall Gateway (Saltash & Torpoint), and us in Caradon Community Network Area. I attend these meetings to represent and report back to our Parish Council. These panels have no powers or budgets, but do provide an opportunity to question Cornwall Council officers, Devon & Cornwall emergency services; fire, police and ambulance or any other local service providers. Recently we have heard from the Devon & Cornwall Police Commissioner. He explained months ago that with the cuts imposed by government, there would have to be cuts in policing services. This has now been detailed as the closure of 30 police stations, including local stations; Callington and Liskeard, both of which have been running down for years. With this reduction of policing, the emergency and non-emergency phone services have become even more important. We know that there have been problems with the 101 non-emergency phone service. I heard that some times you had to wait up to 45 minutes for a response, but the service is supposed to have been improved recently. We are trying to get the police service to demonstrate this, with meaningful statistics.

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.