Welcome a debate on dredging (From Falmouth Packet)

And what if these people do have a vested interest? They are still members of the public just as entitled to their opinions as you to yours. The only difference is they haven't resorted to mudslinging in the way you have.
As for subsidies, what of the billions of state money in bank bailouts, the Olympics and even that large local business called the Eden Project?
Come on Dr Hoskin, if your arguments are so weak that you resort to trying to discredit those who don't support you, then your cause is already lost.
You stood up, made your feelings known and have been unable to persuade us to agree with you.
When you can present a compelling argument about the environment, we'll listen. If you're just hiding your objections to funding behind your environmental opinion then few will take you seriously.

p.s. This letter repeats some of the comments made by the Falmouth Bay and Harbour Action Group . Is that you by any chance.

You may think it unimportant, Teejay, but I wish to know when people have a potential commercial interest in any mooted project.

'I want this project to go ahead and be paid for by someone else so that I, or a business I'm connected with, will make money from it' - is fine as long as the connection is stated. That's being open and transparent, is it not?

I think that the fact that there is a lot of money and income to be made for Falmouth from this means this project should go ahead. Who cares about this maerl and who actually sees it and does it bring any money into Falmouth? No....case answered as without this dredging Falmouth will become a dead town and the docks will finally close down with a tremendous loss to Falmouth/Cornwall. I saw the downturn of Falmouth when the docks had to lay off men and I dont want another but more drastic and devastating decline. This is the reality not just a painted picture. It will benefit the whole of Cornwall as is seen when the liners come in and buses transport the passengers to various destinations. The maerl does nothing for the economy. Reality.

Sorry to disappoint you ‘Teejay’, Dr. Miles Hoskin is not a member of Falmouth Bay and Harbour Action Group. The majority of information regarding the ‘letter writers’ can be found from a quick search on the Falmouth Packet website, the rest from Google. Information freely available to all.
‘Teejay’, I notice that you are a little upset with The Eden Project at the moment. Now usually, David Barnicoat (is that you by any chance?) is very keen to promote how much the Eden project would benefit from dredging. Perhaps The Eden Project is not happy with David Barnicoat making such links, and perhaps they have asked not to be associated with the dredging in either respect? Perhaps this is why David Barnicoat has not been able to OPENLY make comments regarding The Eden Project for a few weeks, either in the Packet or on Radio Cornwall?
I’m sure ‘the maid’ (Mrs Barnicoat is that you by any chance?) will be ready to back you up with a swift reply.
You’ll forgive my presumptions, but you see very few people read the online letters and even fewer reply, but you never fail to, and it would now seem that the supporters of the dredging are a very tight-knit group.
Also, a little disappointed not to be able to directly make comments on David Barnicoat’s writings for the Packet this week. I notice the first ‘dredging promotions’ have crept back in after a subdued couple of weeks, but unfortunately no comments can be left. A braver man would accept comments, would they not?

No,not David Barnicoat, just an ordinary resident with a wish to see Falmouth prosper, instead of being killed off in favour of some seaweed.
As for Eden, not upset with it at all, it's a magnificent achievement and I've visited a good few times over the years. I pick Eden because it's a local business driven by an environmental ideology, but is unable to survive as a business without lottery, government and secret RDA subsidies, yet it's hunger for money goes largely unchallenged.
Cruise ships regularly run tours to Eden, from Falmouth, Fowey and Plymouth so it might well benefit from dredging.
The emphasis from the few tight knit objectors does now seem to be shifting from saving maerl to saving money.

No I am not Mrs Barnicoat but a lifelong resident of Falmouth who has seen the decline of it. How many objectors actually remember and were affected by the Docks laying off men all those years ago? I do not want to see this happen again. I do not know Teejay either but I back his comments as to me he makes more common sense than the Falmouth Bay and Harbour Action Group.

This is a good example that those who wish to enter a debate should have the decency to use their real name.
As for the dredging get on with it and lift the cloud that has decended of this subject.
With out the docks and the holiday makers what is the point of saving something no one would ever know about.
How is it that this mearl takes hundreds of years to grow yet back in the 60s and 70s this was dredged daily causing no damage or it would not be there now.

The quickest way to spot someone who knows they are losing the argument is when they pathetically start thrashing around spending hours searching for dirt on opponents, find some tenuous connection and then triumphantly present that as a reason to discount their views on the grounds that they only hold those views for self advantage. Yes I have a strong vested interest. It is because for years I have worked to help fund, build and run the Dracaena Centre and have seen first hand the pernicious affects of unemployment on local communities in England’s poorest County. If we damage the 20 firms that comprise the Docks we threaten 2,500 local skilled manual labour jobs, many of which come from the Penwerris Ward. We also deny the opportunity to cash in on funding available to perhaps double that employment figure, all at a time of economic crisis world wide. Additionally, and again without any personal recompense like everyone else engaged on such matters, I have for some years worked on the local Community Plan which embodies the largest local consultation ever undertaken, the SIF review, the Town Forum, the joint Regen Committee and I've been briefed by FHC. All support the Docks Masterplan Dredging Option C (NOT Option B) and their opinions carry infinitely more weight with me than Dr Hoskin's. That's before you count in the support of CC, the FTC, the LEP, CDC and others. Maybe its possible that Dr Hoskin is right, because of course HE has no vested interest (or has he?) and everyone involved with the above list is wrong, but I doubt it. The very recent Church Urban Fund report tells us that there are only 686 wards in all of England out of 12,706 that are poorer than Penwerris. It is the people of this ward that Dr Hoskin's campaign is so wickedly attacking. The anti jobs/dredging brigade has been telling us that it takes thousands of years for maerl to regenerate - wrong. That there is significant live maerl in the dredged area- wrong. That the dredging will creates silt - unlikely esp compared to the damage scallop trawling does. The alarmist figure of £23m? Pie in the sky at the moment, we don’t know what it will be until after the trial dredge results are in and proper costings start. Of course the real villain in this matter is the person or persons unknown who took a marker pen and idiotically drew a SAC right up to the dock walls of a historic, busy, working port located at the marine gateway to Europe with the largest dry docks on the South Coast. Without that designation, we wouldn’t be having the arguments we are today. Oh yes and his killer point about Christopher Smith Associates? It was disbanded after a management buy out over 6 yrs ago when a new firm was created, re-branded and re-located. At that point I retired, have not worked as an Architect since and neither does the RIBA code allow me to. I didn't even know that csa-architects had undertaken a commission on the Docks proposals until I attended a Master plan presentation! That commission is over, paid for, and I received no personal benefit from it whatsoever. But I wouldn't expect Dr Hoskin to have bothered researching that, given his biased and one sided approach to this issue.. He knows that the people he challenges to respond to him and whose work he interrupts with endless f.o.i. requests for him to quote selectively are unable to answer back or unwilling to play his game. Fortunately people like David Barnicoat and myself can, and it is gratifying how many messages I have received in the last few days thanking me for standing up to him. Christopher Smith.

1992 - Wheal Jane floods and discharges acidic/metallic sludge into the Fal estuary. Didn't seem to worry Mr.Maerl much.

Also been reported the MCZ are postponed. A victory for common sense. Anyone who has read Finding Sanctuary's vacuous report will know how little real data it contains and how many of the objectives were not concluded, yet the issued report running to nearly 1100 pages in their efforts to influence DEFRA.
Thankfully DEFRA weren't hoodwinked and are seeking more information rather than idealogical hysteria.