AS 2019 arrives it is a chance to look back over 2018 and all that happened in local politics over the past 12 months.

This year will be a big one for Cornwall Council, which will be marking the 10 years since the unitary authority was first created.

But what were the big decisions in 2018 and what has happened since those decisions were made?

The year started with Cornwall Council looking to ask parents of students to pay more towards travel to college. The council had been seeking to raise annual bus passes from £398 to £515, in line with fees charged by Truro and Penwith College.

However, after concerns about the impact of such a large increase the council compromised and said it would have a phased introduction of the increases over a few years.

 

There was shock in January when it was revealed that Cornwall Council was charging disabled residents up to £4,000 to put disabled parking bays in place outside their homes.

The charges were far higher than other parts of the country, where some councils made no charge at all. After the issue was highlighted the council apologised to those who had paid the charges and announced that they would be scrapped.

 

The Stadium for Cornwall first appeared in the headlines in 2018 in January when it was revealed that the partners behind the project had asked Cornwall Council to provide £6million towards the scheme.

Having previously stated that no council money would be used for the stadium, which would be home to the Cornish Pirates and Truro City as well as providing facilities for Truro and Penwith College, the council had to put the proposal to a vote.

That vote in April saw the council agree to provide £3m but only on the provision that the government matched it – fulfilling a promise by former Prime Minister David Cameron that money could be provided.

However as we move into 2019 there has yet to be a decision by the government that it will provide the cash and at the last full council meeting of the year councillors criticised the government for not making any announcement.

Plans to slash the amount of money that Cornwall Council provides to the Citizens Advice Cornwall service were scrapped after a public campaign against the move.

There had been fears that cutting the funding from £356,000 a year to £153,000 could have led to the vital service being reduced. But after a strong campaign the council decided to remove the cut from its budget.

Plans for Cornwall to host a stage of the Tour of Britain cycle race first came to the council in January and by the end of the year the project had moved forward with the council agreeing to fund the event to be staged in 2020. It is hoped that it could eventually lead to Cornwall hosting a stage of the world famous Tour de France.

Fair funding has always been an issue in Cornwall with politicians over the years highlighting the fact that the Duchy gets less funding than other areas in the country for its public services.

Cornwall Council launched a new fairer funding campaign in February with council leader Adam Paynter saying that a fairer deal would provide an extra £39m for Cornwall.

February also saw the council’s Cabinet discussing rubbish and recycling collections with plans to move to fortnightly black bag collections and weekly recycling collections.

The council is set to agree a new contract for the collection service which will start in 2020 and by the end of 2018 had agreed to set the new system. Under the plans there will also be a weekly food waste collection and households will be issued with a wheelie bin or seagull proof sack to store their black bag waste.

Cornwall Council set its budget for 2018/19 in February with council tax rising by 4.99% which councillors said would protect services for the most vulnerable.

In March Tim Dwelly, leader of the Labour group at County Hall, quit the party saying that he had been victim of “bullying and intimidation”.

The Penzance East councillor announced he would be sitting as an independent as being a member of Labour was preventing him from helping local people.

It was revealed in March that construction firm Kier had racked up fines of £400,000 for delays in completing works on the A30 dualling project at Temple.

Cornwall Council implemented clauses in its contract with the firm which allowed to charge financial penalties for the delays. But the delays continued throughout the year with more fines incurred.

 

The council came under fierce criticism in March when it was revealed that it had spent £46,000 to send a group to Cannes for an international development conference.

A team made up of council officers and representatives from the county went on the four-day trip to the MIPIM conference with an aim of attracting investment into Cornwall.

The council defended the expenditure and the decision to go to Cannes and later in the year published a report highlighting contacts and possible investments which could result from the trip – although it did admit that no contracts had yet been signed.

Despite the criticism the council said it is considering returning to the event in 2019 – although this time would not be funding it through Cornwall Council but instead through the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership.

In April it was revealed that the number of children being removed from school and being educated at home had more than doubled in just four years.

More than 1,000 children in Cornwall are now being home schooled, but there were fears that funding for support for parents was being cut.

The One Cornwall Public Transport System was heralded by Cornwall Council with plans to have a single ticket which could be used to access bus, rail and ferry services.

It is all part of a wider scheme to improve public transport in Cornwall which includes a more regular half-hourly train service between Penzance and Plymouth.

However the introduction of that improved service was delayed until at least May 2019 after the introduction of new timetables in the north of England saw widespread chaos with trains cancelled and long delays for passengers.

 

April also saw the first details of how a new town the size of Launceston, Liskeard or St Ives could be built on the outskirts of Truro.

With planning permission already in place for thousands of homes, shops, offices, health facilities, schools and other services on land around Threemilestone, Truro and Langarth the new town could house up to 8,000 people.

But progress on the various developments had stalled so Cornwall Council announced it was looking to intervene to get them underway. And, by doing so, the council hoped to make the wider development more “coherent” and better for those who would live there.

The council also wants to ensure that infrastructure for the new settlement is also built before people start to live there.

By the end of the year the council’s Cabinet had agreed to provide £159m of funding towards the project and buy land to build 164 homes.

A 3d rendering new developments near Threemilestone and the Stadium for CornwallA 3d rendering new developments near Threemilestone and the Stadium for Cornwall

There was a U-turn by the council in April when it scrapped plans to alter its charging policy for adult social care just days after apologising for a botched public consultation on the proposals.

In May Cornwall Council revealed that the Duchy of Cornwall had asked for £8.7m of funding for a new road which will serve the Nansledan development near Newquay.

The Newquay Strategic Route had already secured £15m in funding but the Duchy asked the council to provide the remaining £8.7m so that work could start on the route earlier and provide the full benefits to the scheme.

A councillor called for a change in the way that Cornwall Council sends out papers for meetings after receiving a 184-page agenda in the post – just because it had two confidential pages.

By the end of the year the council had voted in favour of going paperless in the future and stop printing off so many copies of agendas and report papers.

In May the council agreed that all new homes built or commissioned by the council should be fitted with sprinkler systems.

Plans to increase the cost of crossing the Tamar Bridge were announced in June and by the end of the year Cornwall Council had agreed to ask the government for permission to increase charges – if approved cars will pay £2 per crossing compared to £1.50 it currently costs. The charges would come in in July.

 

Cornwall Council’s total debt was revealed to top £723m in June, although with investments worth £408m the council’s net debt was £315m.

There was concern later in the year that plans for the Cornwall Investment Programme to borrow up to £600m could put the council at risk. But the council said that any borrowing would be done on a phased approach and would only be taken out on the basis that it was affordable to the authority.

World Cup fever broke out at County Hall in July when the council flew the English flag outside the offices in Truro for the first time in support of Gareth Southgate’s England team.

Top brass from Devon and Cornwall Police were at County Hall in July explaining to councillors why they supported plans to merge with Dorset Police.

However by the end of the year the planned merger was off the table after Police and Crime Commissioner Alison Hernandez announced she did not support the move.

August saw Cornwall Council announcing plans to go into space after signing an agreement with Virgin Orbit to operate from Spaceport Cornwall for horizontal space launches.

The council said that under the plans the first launches from Newquay could take place within three years.

Under the proposals the spaceport would be used to launch small satellites into orbit but the council said that in future there could be an opportunity to use the spaceport for space tourism.

In August we revealed that taxi drivers in Cornwall were being given licences to operate despite having convictions including death by dangerous driving and speeding.

It was also revealed that Cornwall Council has £19m of unspent money from agreements reached with developers.

The Section 106 money is provided to provide facilities such as schools and roads. But while the council had the money it had not been forced to repay money to developers after time limits ran out.

In September a terrorism expert revealed that the number of people in Cornwall joining right wing groups and sharing extreme views was on the rise.

It was said that there were believed to be 8,000 people in the south west belonging to right wing groups with a “large proportion” from Cornwall.

Cornwall Council hit the national headlines in September after a debate on whether Land’s End should have an apostrophe.

The issue came up as the council agreed names for new electoral wards as part of a boundary review. To the delight of grammar fans across the country it was decided that the apostrophe should remain in place.

 

Pydar Street in Truro was up for debate in September after Cornwall Council announced it was leading a possible £170m redevelopment of land in the city centre.

There are plans to build student accommodation, homes, offices, shops and leisure facilities on the site.

Parents of disabled children said they were shocked after Cornwall Council sent out an email which contained all their email addresses to more than 150 people. The council apologised for the data breach and said it would investigate to prevent it happening again.

Carers of people who use a much-loved day centre in Bodmin said they were concerned for its future after plans were revealed to cut its opening hours.

Cornwall Council admitted that it was considering closing the Lyndhurst Centre for two days a week. Consultation on changes to day centre provision in Cornwall were announced later in the year.

New figures showed that children’s social services in Cornwall are coming under increased pressure with up to 30,000 children in Cornwall living in poverty or at risk of “adverse childhood experiences”.

Child social workers reported that there had been a 15% to 20% increase in referrals regarding children in need.

September saw Cornwall Council launch its budget plans for 2019/20 with an announcement that it could give residents the chance to make voluntary payments to protect services.

Council deputy leader Julian German said that he was confident that Cornwall would not follow other local authorities in the country which were facing huge cuts and even bankruptcy.

In October it was revealed that the cost of fixing Cornwall’s roads completely was £284m.

But councillors heard that it would not be cleared any time soon as the annual budget for road maintenance stands at £36m.

 

Councillors called for better controls on how spending is authorised after it was revealed that a director had signed off £2.5m of unauthorised expenditure.

The overspend had come from the council’s economic growth and development department.

The council defended the overspend saying that it had been on projects coming through the council and would have been incurred anyway. However it did pledge that better controls would be put in place.

There were raised eyebrows in October after planned new parking charges showed that in some areas the fees could rise five times’ higher.

But Cabinet member for transport Geoff Brown said that they were not proposals but had been produced as an indication for councillors – this was despite the reports stating that they were a proposal no less than 30 times.

 

At the end of October the council provided more details about the planned £600m investment programme and said that it was needed to provide income that would help to fund frontline services in the future.

Cornwall Council was strongly criticised by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman after it was revealed that it had given a teenage boy a tent to live in after he was homeless.

The council was ordered to pay compensation to the teenager and his mother as well as apologise to them.

In November new figures showed that 3,500 homes had been bought in Cornwall in 2017 for use as second or holiday homes – 27% of all property purchases in the year.

The Government announced that it was launching a consultation to look at closing a loophole which means that some second home and holiday home owners are avoiding paying council tax or business rates on their properties. If closed it is believed more than £10m extra could be provided for Cornwall.

Also in November the council announced plans for a new Cornwall Living Rent scheme which would help households who are not eligible for social housing but struggle to pay private rents.

Under the scheme the level of rent would be linked to the lowest average income in the areas where properties are located and giving people the chance to save for a deposit to buy a home.

In December Cornwall Council agreed to spend £40m in buying 250 properties which would be used as emergency and temporary housing for households who find themselves homeless.

The plans would see properties bought across Cornwall to help those in need and also cut the amount of money being spent on temporary accommodation like B&Bs.

December also saw Cornwall Council vote in favour of supporting a people’s vote on Brexit.

The call came after council leader Adam Paynter revealed that he was meeting with Michel Barnier, the EU negotiator on Brexit, to highlight the importance of Europe to Cornwall.

So, that was 2018 at Cornwall Council – what will 2019 hold? There are sure to be more debates and discussions on the big issues such as the Stadium for Cornwall, Brexit and the new town on the outskirts of Truro.

We can probably also expect more details about Spaceport Cornwall and looking ahead to the new slimmed down council when it drops from 123 members to 87 in 2021 and what that could mean for Cornwall.