‘It appears money talks louder than any protestor’ (From Falmouth Packet)

‘It appears money talks louder than any protestor’

10:20am Wednesday 31st October 2012 in Skipper

* Full story of the plans for the new industrial estate below ..

THE fact plans to build a new industrial estate on land between Falmouth and Budock Water have finally been granted permission cannot be a surprise to anyone.

This piece of land has been earmarked for development for years, and it was only ever a matter of time before the inevitable happened.

Sadly, the battle to prevent this plan from going ahead has proved to be an expensive one, with the legal costs of the appeal process being handed to Cornwall Council.

It seems a little churlish to make council tax payers pay the price for the fight to save the countryside around them from development. However, maybe it is time we accept the fact we have little say on what happens to the land around us.

For all of the government's trumpeting of localism, it seems to me that nothing has changed - it does not matter what people in the local area want - developers will be given the green light regardless.

Yet again it appears that money talks far louder than any protestor.

Now, please do not think this is a rant against Rowe's, whose desire to build an extension to their factory is behind the scheme.

The company is a local success story, provides local job in a tough economic climate, and the very fact it wants to expand suggests it will be supporting local workers for many years to come.

Indeed, if it was just a case of building the extension, I would have had little objection to the scheme.

However, the developers behind the project were never going to do that.

Instead, the extension comes alongside 12 'bespoke, hybrid office and industrial units'.

Now, I cannot for a second imagine how anyone would have thought it was a good idea to build 12 more industrial units in Falmouth.

Drive around any of the town's business parks and you will find empty units galore.

The demand is simply not there, and, despite claims we are out of recession last week, it looks unlikely we are set for a surge of new businesses coming into the town any time soon.

Sadly, that fact is not enough to prevent these new units from being built on the beautiful countryside on the edge of the town, where they will more than likely sit, unoccupied, for many years to come.

Maybe some new rules could be introduced by the government to benefit local people for once.

Why not make developers pay a surcharge for every property built that remains empty for more than a year? It may just be enough to make them think twice before submitting plans like these.

Fight continues to stop a new industrial estatate being built on green belt ....

Massive housing plan submitted

Housing plans mean 'total destruction' of green buffer