Cornwall councillor Andrew Wallis voted against Truro for European City of Culture bid

Andrew Wallis, who represents Porthleven and part of Helston, has spoken of his anger at being the only member of the cabinet at Cornwall Council to vote against allocating £563,000 towards the bid for 2023.

Mr Wallis said: “Basically, this money would be used to work up a bid in a competitive process in a winner takes all prize. There really is no prize for second place apart from being a few hundred-thousand lighter in the bank balance.”

He added that while other bidders such as Dundee had already been working on their bid for more than a year, Cornwall was now left with just nine months from start to finish before the deadline for submission in October this year.

Not only this, but should the bid be successful Cornwall Council will be required to contribute at least another £10 million to make the project work.

Mr Wallis said: “In an ideal world, this sort of thing might be rather nice, but I put this on the nice-to-do list, rather than being strategically important to do. I say this because the council for the last several years has been cutting and reducing services because of the budgetary pressures the council face from the cuts in funding and increased demand for services.

“But despite these pressures, a cool £536,000 can be found for working up this bid, or what is in reality, one massive punt. My view is we should be concentrating on our core business, rather than chasing ego-badges like this.”

The remaining cabinet member disagreed, however, and voted that £136,000 should come from existing budgets (Economic Initiatives Fund) and set aside £400,000 from the Economic Development match funding allocation, as well as look for other sources of funding.

A report given to the cabinet ahead of its decision stated that it was “reasonable to assume” that should Truro win the competition, it could bring in around £100 million over the course of the year it holds the title.