Cornish communities aspire to grow. And grow. And grow.

Give enough monkeys an infinite amount of time and some typewriters and we’re told they’ll eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. But how much time should we give Cornwall Council’s planning department before they come up with something that makes sense? For sheer unadulterated nuttiness alone the Core Strategy documents are well worth a read.

For example, each of the 19 ‘community network areas’ discussion papers contains a table setting out ‘growth factors’. At the bottom there’s a traffic light key – green (!?) for ‘supports the case for future growth’, orange for ‘no conclusion’ and red for ‘suggests concerns over future growth’. Each policy objective is evaluated against these.

One of these objectives is ‘community aspiration’, presumably meaning what communities want. Starting in West Penwith we find that

growth can help deliver many of the aspirations of local communities

It appears that the people of Hayle and St Ives are also keen on growth for

the area has aspirations to grow both in terms of housing and employment

Meanwhile, at Helston

growth will help deliver many of the aspirations communities have

Moving on to Camborne-Redruth we discover that of course the area

has aspirations to grow in terms of both housing and employment, and growth can help maintain the existing retail centres and community facilities and enable new community facilities to come forward

It’s the same story at Falmouth and Penryn, where, amazingly

growth can enable many of the local community’s [sic] aspirations to be delivered

In Truro we also find that

growth can help deliver many of the aspirations of local communities

To cut a lengthening story short precisely the same wording is used at St Agnes, Newqay, St Austell, St Blazey, Newquay and Lanson

Cornwall planners hard at work

In the china clay area ‘can’ becomes ‘will’ as the planners remember their muscular ‘can-do’ mission

growth will help support the regeneration of villages and the local economy and enable the delivery of affordable homes

At Bodmin, there’s no doubt about it. The town

has aspirations to grow in terms of both housing and employment

Even up at Camelford it seems

the area has aspirations to grow to some degree so long as it is planned and is sensible (?)

They may not be so keen in Bude but the planners reminds them sternly that

growth will help maintain Bude’s role as the local service centre for the area

While at Liskeard/Looe they’re much more enthusiastic as

growth will help to deliver many of the aspirations of local communities

Over at Saltash/Torpoint too the Council’s in-depth research into local views is replaced with

growth can help support the regeneration of Saltash and Torpoint town centres and new housing development will mean more people will fall within their respective catchment areas

Only at Caradon (Callington and Calstock) is there some hesitation with no explicit mention of growth or uncovering of the expected massive local aspirations.

And what about those traffic lights? Well, what a surprise! It appears that not one of the 11 objectives in any of the 19 CNAs gives rise to ‘suggested concerns over future growth’. It apparently matters not a whit whether the place in question has already more than doubled in size over the past generation or is destined to grow by up to 70% in just 20 years. There are never ‘concerns’ over growth anywhere. 

Indeed, according to the picture from Lys Kernow the Council is just innocently meeting the wishes of communities, all aglow with aspirations to grow.