Emotions ran high in Penryn last Wednesday as the Temperance Hall was packed for the third time in as many weeks due to the contentious issue of development in College Valley.

In a meeting which stretched on for three hours, residents took the opportunity to air their opinions and ask questions of the town council, and representatives from Cornwall Council’s planning department, over the decision to prioritise parts of the valley for housing.

The youngest speaker, 10-year-old Louis Ratcliffe, spoke passionately about how his generation was the “most inactive in history”, and told the council that the woodlands were a space for the young people to play, adding that Glasney playing field was already waterlogged and development would make it worse and “leave us with nowhere to play.”

He was also worried about the extra traffic the 220 home development would bring to the town, saying his sister had been clipped by a car only last year.

Louis asked: “What will Penryn be like for my friends in the next three to five years, let alone my children?” to which town mayor Gill Grant replied, “when you grow up, will you want to buy or rent a house?”

Life-long Penryn resident Clive Thomas told of how he had played in the “beautiful woodlands” as a child, and said: “Enough is enough. We don’t need any more houses in Penryn. Go build them down in Land’s End or elsewhere.”

Pete Shields asked if the council would give the same respect to the 2,300 signatories of a petition to stop the development as they gave the developers, and several of the speakers asked about whether the buck was being passed from the town council to Cornwall Council, who then passed the blame up to central government who are asking for new development plans from local authorities.

Councillors became angry after a member of the public asked for proof that none of them had benefited in any way from Walker Developments, and town clerk Michelle Davey quickly intervened to say that records on the financial interests of all councillors were kept by the council, and could be provided on request.

There were cheers from the public when, after William Logan asked for two “brave” councillors to sign a motion to revoke the previous council decision, Councillors David Garwood and Shelley Peters raised their hands.

Planning committee chairman Mark Snowdon, another life-long resident of Penryn, was driven to talk at length about his own love of the town, and how there was nobody in the room who cared about the issue more than him But he added that it was important as a councillor to take the emotion out of planning.

Most of the 80 or so residents who left the meeting on Wednesday seemed to feel that the council needed to do more to listen to their voices, and that their questions had not been fully answered.