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.

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

Happy New Year everyone. I'm writing this just before Christmas, which has already been a real boost for me. I'm in a position where I can voluntarily give my time to a number of community organisations even more rewarding than the parish council. This year the food bank where I volunteer organised Christmas boxes as a little extra, given by members of the community to those who needed to use the food bank through the year. Delivering those surprise boxes of Christmas goodies was the most rewarding thing I've done this year. People's reactions varied from the stunned to the very emotional. Everyone was grateful for the unexpected gifts that could make their Christmas special, and I was grateful for the opportunity to make a difference. There are lots of different volunteering opportunities locally depending on ability. I might choose to help with scrub clearance on nature reserves or DIY at The Growing Project Pensilva; others help in reception at Millennium House. Anyway I highly recommend volunteering as something to start doing, maybe as a New Year's resolution.
The parish council is about to set the precept portion of our council tax. We have two options: Delegating the management of Millennium House to the Pensilva Community Association charity (PCA), or carrying on as usual. If we carry on as before the precept will have to go up dramatically, from £62,000 probably to about £87,000. If PCA take over, the precept could actually reduce slightly. This is because parish reserves would not need to be as large for a smaller parish turnover, and as a charity PCA can save money.

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.