It is all about planning this week as rumblings in one Cornish town show that the locals are starting to revolt.

Now Falmouth, Penryn and the surrounding area have seen their share of developments over the years, and spare a thought for Camborne and Redruth which seems to have link roads and oceans of homes coming out their ears, but it seems that St Ives is shaping up to be the latest battlegroud  of local need versus developers’ greed.

We all know that the housing market is a broken as a politician’s promise, and that it causes untold damage to people in Cornwall, but is a moratorium on large scale development the answer, for that is what the area’s MP is calling for.

The similarities with Falmouth and Penryn are thrown into focus by the instantaneous objections to homes in College Valley.

People seem to be tired of yet more building, with nothing to show for it but a despoiled countryside and ever more pressure on roads and services.

The fight for adequate housing and to stop swathes of this fair Duchy becoming sterile empty secondhomesville seems a strange one indeed to the old Skipper, it should have been won long ago.

But when up against the money making ‘lifestyle property’ machine, what hope is there for the locals.

Plus ça change!