Dear Andrew

Cornishman article 25 February 2010 – ‘Harbour Firms are prepared to make way for Option PZ’

I take no pleasure in having to write to you on this subject. You seem single minded in trying to undermine the hard work the Council has done to retain the sea link in Penzance. Graeme Hicks CC had to convince me to consider resubmitting proposals for Planning approvals in Penzance but as a Council we are committed to that path for Option A.

In your press release on 3 February 2010 you stated that your newly promoted Option PZ was called such “because it has come from the people of Penzance and has not been foisted on the town from outside”. I remind you of the public consultation undertaken by Penwith District Council in 2004 and 2005, to which you claim to have been party to securing the funding, and also of the statutory process of consultation through the Penzance Harbour Revision Order. No scheme has been foisted on Penzance as it came from Penwith DC and the responses from its community.

In that same press release you stated:

“It [Option PZ] will have the following beneficial features and will:

• be less expensive than Option A

• not require another Harbour Revision Order

• at least achieve if not exceed all of the objectives of Option A

• enable Penzance and the project to work constructively with English Heritage

• offer a range of additional facilities and opportunities to develop the marine economy of

Penzance

• reduce the amount of freight handling

• enhance and speed up the service

• improve health and safety standards”

However, on 22 February 2010 Kevin Lavery (Chief Executive, CC) requested information about Option PZ but has received nothing in reply so you could have had no hope of substantiating those claims which served only to unfairly raise expectations of your constituents and to undermine the Council’s position.

The only information this Council has been given about the PZ option is what you have promoted in The Cornishman, published on 25 February, in which it is reported:

“St.Ives MP Andrew George has led discussions with the current waterside occupiers. He has confirmed that two businesses, which currently lease their spaces from the council, have been offered compensation packages to free the site. He added “They are happy to move. These businesses support the plans because they want to contribute to the regeneration of the town.”

The report is incorrect, the businesses have not been contacted by anybody from this Council to offer compensation. A statement on behalf of The Waterside Meadery this week stated that the company supports Option A but would move if it meant avoiding losing the link from Penzance. It seems that you have also misrepresented their position?

Further, you are quoted as saying:

“It’s not too late….”

What new information do you have that allows you to make such assertions? You have as recently as 10 February 2010 been advised by the Strategic Leaders’ Board (South West Councils) of the risks of losing the project funding but you continue in misleading the public and unrealistically raising expectations. You have been briefed before on the time required to develop ideas into full business cases for the Department for Transport to consider and accept. This project does not have the time to start from scratch on a new idea.

On top of this you have arranged a public meeting to promote Option PZ only 5 days before the Penzance proposal (Option A) is considered by the Strategic Planning Committee on 8 March 2010.

I find your actions and statements to be irresponsible and divisive in their timing.

I call on you to:

Write to The Cornishman amending your statement or correcting the factual errors quoted from your discussions, to be printed prominently in the 4 March edition.

Reconsider the timing of your public meeting on 3 March delaying it until after a decision has been made on Option A by the Planning Committee.

You know that this Council has decided to pursue Option A for Penzance, in parallel, the viability of Falmouth as the mainland port for the Isles of Scilly link is also being initially assessed. Option A or Falmouth, as the fall-back option, are the only options the Council feels are deliverable within the funding timescales. By promoting undeveloped ideas to “scupper Option A” (quoting Tim Dwelly, A Future for Penzance) you are dividing the Penzance community and running the risk that Penzance will lose funding for any harbour project. The sea link with the economic and community benefits it brings to Penzance will be lost and you will put the future of your remote constituents on the Isles of Scilly in jeopardy.

Yours sincerely

Alec Robertson CC

Leader of the Council

________________________________________

Dear Alec,

You say you “take no pleasure” from writing your letter. I suspect you will take less from this reply.

You are the Leader of the pre-eminent authority in Cornwall. Yet you rely on quoting hyperbole from a campaign group using a social networking site and on what you know is selective quotations and inaccurate reports. Your actions diminish the Council on which you serve.

This is a vital project. I remain determined to see it delivered and not knocked off course.

Contrary to your claims you should recognise the following facts:

· It is your Cabinet - not I - which “undermines the Council”. It is your Council – not Parliament – which rejected it's own planning application.

· It is you and your Council - not I - which is "running the risk" of scuppering the project and losing the funding; having been rejected once, your Council has chosen to put this vital project at risk by asserting that it can reasonably expect to change the minds of both a statutory consultee and your own planning committee on an application identical to the one it considered and rejected just weeks ago.

· It is your Cabinet – not I – which puts this project at further risk by conduct unlikely to survive even gentle scrutiny.

· It is your Cabinet - not I - which "continues misleading the public" by failing to acknowledge that your Falmouth option would result in losing the money; something repeated in all of the advice I have passed to you, including letters from the Shipping Minister and the Strategic Leaders' Board.

· It is your Council - not I - which has driven a wedge through the local community (which I fear could take years to recover from). I hope you will not now pretend that your Council has not expended time and resources seeking out and then supporting organisations and campaign groups which – whilst fully entitled to assert opinions on the merits of particular planning applications – have nonetheless been used by some as a vehicle for antipathy and discord. Indeed your Council’s appointed Project Contractor (Birse Coastal) who are responsible for the delivery of the project appear to have been deployed as well! – see footnote [i][1].

· It is your Councils - not I - who have damaged the previously harmonious relationship between Penzance and the Scillies; and which I fear may take years to restore.

· You say that you are promoting "the only options the Council feels are deliverable". Yet they are 1) a proposal your own Council has already rejected and 2) to snub Penzance, lose all the funding, and lose time by threatening to take it to somewhere for which many of us doubt a plausible business case could be constructed.

· You say that "the project does not have the time to start from scratch on a new idea", yet that is what you will have to do if you follow the logic of your approach - starting afresh with the Falmouth option and with no money!

· It is your Portfolio Holder who has offended the Minister by claiming that he had snubbed me - a claim he felt honour bound to correct - see footnote [ii][2].

· It was I who, in the teeth of the customary torrent of abuse from your Portfolio Holder, warned last summer that the Council's favoured option may not be 'politically deliverable'. Instead of listening to advice and warnings from others and I your Council chose to attack those people and then went on to insult whole sections of the community in Penzance.

I reiterate:

· Planning applications are a matter for Councils not Parliament.

· I have no comments to make on the merits or otherwise of the Council's planning application - see footnote [iii][3].

Perhaps the reason your Council has got itself in this predicament is that it believes the project is a vehicle for party political advantage (I attach one of many such emails which indicate the basis for this contention – see footnote [iv][4]).

Whilst having one eye on this, the Councils have taken their eye off the main ball which is to deliver the project and not lose the funding. That requires different skills to the ones which are required to use it as a political point scoring exercise.

I accept your Portfolio holder’s analysis; that by taking a principled stand I am probably damaging my electoral prospects. However, the principle is more important than pandering to irresponsible populism (risking the future of the project and risking the funding with it).

For the avoidance of doubt I rebut your assertions. Your Cabinet has:

· Put the whole project at risk.

· Risked losing the funding for this vitally important improvement to the Isles of Scilly Ferry Link.

· Offended great swathes of the local community.

· Driven a wedge between people where there needn’t have been one and fanned the flames of dispute.

· Harmed relations between Penzance and the Isles of Scilly.

· Misled the public about the options.

· Put my constituents on the Isles of Scilly in jeopardy.

· Undermined the good reputation of many Council officials who have worked hard on this project for many years.

· Diminished your own Council and brought it into disrepute.

I urge you to rethink; to change direction from the disastrous course on which you are currently heading. Come down and work constructively with local businesses in the local community who are desperately worried about the future of this vital link; and find a way forward which does not run the risk of the project failing.

This is vitally important for both Penzance and the Isles of Scilly. Your Portfolio holder is confident that the majority of people in Penzance oppose what I have been doing and support your Council. You should therefore have no fear about coming to Penzance and repeating what you have said to the public and making sure that I am answerable for your claims. Will you to come down to Penzance tomorrow evening, share a platform with me and debate these issues in the open?

I look forward to receiving your response.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew George MP

PUBLISHED BY THE WESTERN MORNING NEWS