Cornwall is a green land of sparse population, built on hard tin and copper-rich rock and clay. It is surrounded on three sides by sea.
It's industries were dictated from the start. Mining, fishing, farming and digging clay for the potteries have all been at the heart of Cornwall's (relative) prosperity.
Now the mining is all but finished. The one remaining mine has closed but a fight goes on to save it.
Fishing and farming are both on the ropes after a catalogue of disasters and the clay industry has always been restricted (funnily enough) to where there is clay.
Cornwall is now a land dependent, to a large extent, on tourism. But the beauty and geographic isolation of Cornwall are becoming advantages for other reasons. New technology is finding a home in Cornwall. People who can work where they choose over the internet are flocking to the most beautiful part of the UK.
Cornwall also has a readily available and flexible workforce, low costs and plenty of commercial space available. It is a land of innovation and entrepreneurial flair. It cannot stay down for long.
As the world looks to sourcing renewable energy, Cornwall will be at the forefront of some pioneering technology.
For it was more than 30 years ago that Cornwall led the field in the research of ‘hot rock’ power generation.
‘Hot rock’ or geothermal energy to give it a correct name is the process of pumping cold water deep into the earth’s crust so that it returns to the surface via a second hole at a high temperature . A heat exchanger then converts the heat to electricity.
Cornwall is a world pioneer in this area of energy generation. Following the 1973 oil crisis, the UK government looked to alternative ways of generating electricity.
A geothermal energy research project was set up at Rosemanowes Quarry, near Penryn, that ran from 1977 until 1991.
Although the plant was never a working power plant, the research carried out in conjunction with Camborne School of Mines formed data that was used in commercial plants the world over. As recently as 2004, the intellectual findings of the Cornish research were sold on.
The bore holes at Rosemanowes, a quarry last used in the Second World War by American troops to store equipment prior to the D Day landings, are almost two miles deep. Cornwall, like parts of Australia, has a bed rock of granite. ‘Hot’ dry granite is full of cracks and fissures that the water can be pumped into and heated up, coming back up to the surface as steam.
Cornwall has plenty of granite and the ‘hot rocks’ are comparitively close to the surface.
This gives Cornwall a natural advantage in this industry as it requires less drilling.
Geothermal Engineering Ltd will use this advantage to build a power plant near Redruth that will be operational by 2013.
It will be the first commercial geothermal plant in the UK and will produce 10 megawatts of electricity to the national grid and 55 megawatts of heat
Hopefully the scheme in Redruth will be the beginning of a new industry in the British Isles and help to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels for our energy dependency.
The Eden Project is also planning to generate power from heat sources far underground using ‘hot rocks’ technology in a scheme that could become operational by 2012.
Enough electricity to power 5,000 homes could be produced as well as supplying the power needs of the Eden Project itself.
Matt Hastings, a renewable energy officer at Eden, said: “It's a massively exciting project - a way of making sure Eden has a source of green power but also of feeding heat and power into the local community and into the national grid. We will only need a quarter of the electricity that will be generated. Cornwall leads the way in wind and wave energy technology. Now we're trying to do the same in geothermal power."
Energy experts believe the schemes could be the beginning of a power generating industry in Cornwall with up to 10 per cent of Britain’s energy needs coming from Cornish geothermal plants in the future.
Clare Morgan asks if Cornwall’s new £390 million funding package has started to make an impact
The continuing development of the economy of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly is a never-ending journey.
The last seven years has seen it turn around from being a declining economy into one where growth, ambition, globalisation and knowledge as a trading asset underpin our economic aspirations.
As with Objective One, the new European investment programmes, Convergence, will be a catalyst in continuing the regeneration of our economy.
One year into the Convergence Programmes what have we achieved and what does it actually mean to you and me?
Tricia Lazarus would say she knows what it means, following the support she received via the ESF (European Social Fund) Convergence Programme. When she left her family home in Brighton and moved in with her grandparents at their Newquay-based hotel, The Cumberland, she had no qualifications and no plans to work. (Picture by Bernie Patterson)
Her grandmother, Lesley Holway, allowed Tricia a few months to settle into her new Cornish home before she announced it was time for her to start to earn her keep.
After a few shifts working in the hotel bar or reception Mrs Holway told Tricia she believed she needed to push herself further and that she should start by getting some qualifications.
Tricia said: “I really wasn’t interested, I was quite happy just plodding along, but Grandma had trained other members of staff through Newquay for Excellence, an independent training organisation and she felt it was time to train me. It was decided I should take an NVQ2 in Hospitality Service and I became part of the TEAM Project, supported by the Learning and Skills Council through the ESF Convergence Programme.”
Tricia successfully completed her course and went on to take the NVQ2 Introductory Certificate in Team Leading followed by an NVQ2 Introductory Certificate in Management. She is currently working at the Porth Veor Manor Hotel and is about to begin another course in customer service with a view to fulfilling her dream of owning and running her own hotel.
She said: “Training for a career was the last thing on my mind when I came to Cornwall but it has changed my life, broadened my outlook completely and inspired me to succeed.”
Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly qualified for the Objective One and Convergence programmes because its economic performance as measured between 2001 and 2003 had been below 75 per cent of the European Union average. The only other Convergence area in the UK is West Wales and the Valleys.
The ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) and ESF Convergence Programmes will run until 2013. They are being invested along four main themes:
·Developing our People. People are at the core of economic regeneration and giving them the right support, in the right place, at the right time can help them into training and work.
·Strengthening Business. The accelerated growth of businesses that are better able to pay higher wages will strengthen the commercial value of the economy. This means support, specialist advice, quality modern workspace and capital for mainly small and medium sized businesses.
·Investing in our Future. The development of much stronger links between higher education and business will help grow businesses, encourage graduates and academics to start their own businesses and attract new and different types of business.
·Making Connections. Investment in the roll out of improved broadband technology and, as importantly, support and training for businesses to maximise its use will provide the opportunities for new forms of business and markets across the world.
Carleen Kelemen, director of the Convergence Partnership Office for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, said: “This investment is to strengthen our economy in the long term. Much of the ERDF Convergence Programme will be invested in improving the relationship between business and higher education – through research and graduate placement; boosting our connectivity through upgraded broadband technologies and continuing to improve the local infrastructure for businesses through workspace and town development.
“The ESF Convergence Programme will be investing in individuals – supporting them in work so they can increase their skills in or out of work so they can gain confidence to re enter employment.
“Throughout this economic restructuring it is important to use the investment to ensure that any growth makes sense to Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.”
A good example of this comes from the World Heritage Site designation that Cornwall received in 2006, having had support from the Objective One Programme.
The designation came from celebrating and reinvigorating the historic mining sites across Cornwall and West Devon. Investment was used to regenerate former mining towns, such as St Just and to breathe new life into the mines. For instance new workspace was built at Wheal Kitty and the former engine house converted to offices.
The environment is increasingly at the core of all economic activity – nationally, internationally and, of course, locally.
Environmental energies will receive support. Again this builds on Cornwall’s strengths – a history of innovation and a landscape surrounded on three sides by the sea (a potentially massive source of alternative energy via projects such as the Wave Hub). It also capitalises on the recent increase in knowledge networks, supply of graduates and research facilities and improving digital technologies.
Just over one year since the Convergence launch a variety of projects have been approved for £100 million of investment. ERDF Convergence investments include £4.8 million to the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry for Cornwall’s campus of the first dental college in the UK for 40 years plus top quality research facilities; Watson Marlow Bredel about £770,000 for a £3.5 million expansion so the company continues to be globally competitive; £9 million for business facilities at Pool Innovation Centre and £4.6 million in Business Link to support those businesses with potential and ambition for high growth.
ESF Convergence investments include £4 million in Unlocking Cornish Potential which places and support graduates with businesses; £48 million with the Learning and Skills Council to train, skill and upskill those in and out of work and £16 million with Jobcentre Plus.
Someone who benefitted from European structural investment via Jobcentre Plus is Bill Davies who left school early with no qualifications and poor literacy skills. He was really successful in construction work and gained a reputation as a reliable, hard working man very good at heavy manual work.
However, through that work Bill’s back became badly damaged and surgery that went wrong made the problem worse. At 28, he was told he could never work in construction again and that he faced a life of constant pain.
He became more and more depressed and isolated, misusing the pain killers and alcohol as a form of self medication. His relationship with his partner broke down and he became homeless.
Purely by accident Bill turned up at a Cornwall Works/CAT event and now says this was the best thing he did. By this time Bill was angry, aggressive and in his own head firmly stuck in the scrap heap.
Cornwall Works – which is receiving ESF Convergence investment - supported Bill to undertake a series of activities that helped him rebuild his confidence and self esteem. He learned how to cope with his condition and to get control over his own life. He learned how to start and change his life. Cornwall Works made sure that Bill had all the support that was available and eventually Cornwall Works organised him a work placement to help him rebuild his physical and mental stamina.
Since then he has become a successful Health Trainer on the Healthy Neighbourhoods Project working to support people who have the same or similar problems as he did. He has been there for more than a year and is considered to be a very valuable member of the team.
Carleen Kelemen added: “In this difficult economic climate it would be easier for all of us not to see the light at the end of the tunnel and for some, they have already turned it off. But we have this opportunity to inject real money into the Cornish economy to increase economic activity and to carve out our economic future.”
Jessica Tooze and George Thomas challenge the proposals that could change Cornish life forever
As a business functioning at the heart of many rural communites, Cornwall’s isolated post offices are considered an indispensable public service.
For those facing impaired mobility, or whose local bus routes are infrequent or non-existent, the ability to complete simple tasks such as collecting pensions and paying bills are entirely reliant on the provision of an accessible post office.
It therefore comes as a huge, and hurtful blow to people in this situation that the Government plans to close 62 rural post offices across Cornwall, leaving thousands forced to travel miles to access the services many of us take for granted.
Post offices in such locations have been receiving a Government subsidy to help them provide vital services. Now the Government wants to cut this subsidy by closing one in five Cornish branches.
Flushing Post Office. Facilities such as this will be missed by elderly residents in the area. Picture by Sam Batchelor.
One of the first villages to experience the impact of a post office closure was Lanreath in 2004, offering a gloomy vision for the future of many smaller Cornish communities.
Rita Hancock, secretary for Lanreath Community Association, said: “It made the village dead – whereas people were going to the shop and bumping into others on the way, once the place was closed, you could come down to the village and wouldn’t see a soul.”
The closure was met with the most constructive response possible – the creation of a new post office and shop run and staffed by volunteers. While this was a small success story in coping with the loss of a necessity, it remains a daunting prospect for smaller villages findings themselves in the cross hairs.
Parkinson’s disease sufferer Ellen Sorrell, 80, lives near Bude is one person who will be adversely affected by the closure of her local facility. While Mrs Sorrell was originally able to use her motorised scooter to reach the post office, its imminent closure will mean having to use the infrequent public transport service into Bude. This remains a problem, since she is unable to take the vehicle onto a common bus, and therefore must use a wheelchair.
“It was a lot of hassle,” she said after having attempted to use the transport service. “You have to pre-warn the bus that you wish to travel on, and then have to have someone with you as a ‘pusher’.”
Mrs Sorrell stated that the closure could force her to change houses, or to move into a nursing home, in order to prevent a complete loss of independence.
Matthew Taylor, MP for Truro and St Austell, is a major critic of the closures of small post office branches. He underlined the problems faced by many people once their local branch is removed.
“Governments have failed to understand the importance of the financial and information centres that post offices provide.
“It makes living in villages unsustainable for people who can’t get about easily. That may be a relatively small number but it is still significant.”
Figures gathered by the post office watchdog Postwatch show that 80 per cent of rural post office customers who use the service at least once a week are 65 or over.
The face to face interaction of a local post office is a vital asset in rural communities. Picture by Sam Batchelor.
Penwith District Council’s ‘champion for older people’ Chris Goninan also felt that the closures would have a dramatic effect on this section of the demographic.
He added: “For elderly people it really is a social occasion to go out and get the pension, which a lot of them do on a weekly basis.”
The Government carried out a nine-week local area review that assessed the financial viability of Cornwall’s post offices. Local post office sub-masters and mistresses were informed of the pending threat to their branch two months before the closure lists were released, but were asked not to ‘go public’ with details of which post offices were blacklisted. Any post office manager admitting that their post office was under treat risked losing out on compensation payments. Thus the impact of the pending closures on local people has been accentuated by the distinct lack of warning.
Essentially this threat reduced the time in which a community could assemble and fight these planned changes. Had residents been aware of any risk to their local post office earlier, an opposing campaign in many villages would be well underway.
The timing of the consultation process, which coincides with the summer holiday period, has also been subject to widespread criticism. Many local people will be unavailable or occupied with the huge influx of tourists, thereby reducing the ability of those opposed to the plans to actively show their anger. As the consultation will be running over the summer months there will be less opportunities available for Parliamentary scrutiny of the proposals.
Julia Goldsworthy, MP for Falmouth and Camborne, has recognised the suspicious timing of the announcements and is involved in a passionate campaign to save Cornish post offices, which is expected to gather momentum over the coming months.
Speaking to a meeting attended by over 250 people of the Camborne and Redruth area, Julia said: “I have promised residents that I will do everything in my power to support this campaign, and though I can’t wave a magic wand, I will do my best to save these post offices.”
At the meeting, Julia urged residents to send personalised letters to the post office, as these count as individual submissions, rather than signing a petition that is counted as just one.
“If we show enough evidence that the post office is vital to the community, then there is a chance it could be saved,” added Julia.
In order to keep the business afloat, 2,500 post offices must close across the UK under the Government’s national Post Office Network Change Programme. This led to rumours that if a community managed to prevent one office from closing, another nearby would eventually be shut down.
Julia Goldsworthy denied this, stating: “That is not true. The six Cornish MPs wrote to Post Office Ltd about that very point and they assured us that each post office would be considered on its individual merits. So I would like to reassure anyone who is worried about this that campaigning to save your post office does not mean that another one will be closed.”
Post Office Ltd and Postwatch sent representatives to Bude and Wadebridge where residents of North Cornwall were given the chance to express their outrage at the proposals. One parish alone sent two busloads of people to the meetings.
Local MP Dan Rogerson organised the congregations.
“It is vital we get a good turnout at the public meetings with Post Office Limited to show them a strength of feeling against these plans,” he commented. “They have tried to mute opposition by keeping the full closure programme secret and then scheduling the consultation during the summer months.
“I am confident that people will not let their valued Post Office branches be closed by the back door.”
While the campaign continues to snowball, what can rural residents expect if the Government’s closure plans are realised in their community? Will there be light at the end of the tunnel for the hundreds of people affected if the changes occur?
Protection guidelines state that 95 per cent of the population must live within 3 miles of a post office after the reductions have taken place. Cornwall Council have looked at outreach programs, such as mobile post vans or services located in other community buildings to replace the lost post offices. This concept has already been confirmed as replacing 13 of the 62 planned closures in the county.
The council is also examining strategies offered by Essex County Council, which underwent a similar assessment in November 2007. The council asked Post Office Ltd for the opportunity to run post offices in conjunction with the company, with the additional proposal of offering local government information in branches, together with services provided by other local statutory and voluntary organisations.
Cornwall Council is keen to explore this One Stop Shop programme and St Ives MP Andrew George is fully supportive of the idea.
“There is a perpetual threat to a lot of the public service when they are run on their own. We should wait to see the post office as the public service desk in each community and expand its role.”
Yet there is another proposal that could save Cornwall’s rural communities from growing isolation.
Sir John Banham, one of the UK’s top businessmen, has produced a paper entitled Securing the Future of the Post Office Network. Supporting the council’s proposals for the merging of facilities, as well as offering more radical suggestions, the paper could instigate a major upturn in usage and profits.
Sir John, who himself lives in a rural area in West Cornwall, suggests that the post office could provide a local base from which to deliver home shopping, thereby solving the ‘last three miles’ delivery problem experienced by many online retailers. The office could also provide a base from which to place orders via touch screen.
The most forward of Banham’s amendments, however, suggests that Cornwall Council assume full responsibility of post office branches in the Duchy, thereby securing their future while reaping the benefits. The idea has been less than well received in some areas, perhaps seeming a little too radical for local politicians.
“I don’t think taking over the post offices is necessarily the right way to go about it,” said Councillor Joyce Mepsted.
“We are looking to open between 15 and 20 One Stop Shops which we may be able to combine with the post office – we need to be looking at this possibility.”
Cornwall Council has voted to seek a judicial review of the closure proposals, suggesting the use of inaccurate data during assessments and a failure of Post Office Ltd to demonstrate an understanding of the rural deprivation issues facing Cornwall.
Councillors pointed out that the 2001 census was the primary source of information for the consultation process, while noting inaccuracies such as the assumption that Dartmoor was part of Cornwall, and overestimating the Cornish population by almost 200,000 people. These latest developments provide hope that the final result may be less harmful than originally anticipated, should the review be successful.
However, it is clear that although damage could be limited, some post offices simply cannot be saved. For those villages unfortunate enough to face this prospect, authorities will need time to debate, implement, and ensure the success of coping initiatives. Meanwhile, many of Cornwall’s rural post offices will begin to close leaving dozens of communities isolated – communities that will fight to escape a fate that increasingly seems unavoidable and unfair.
Challenging proposals such as Sir John Banham’s may not please traditionally minded councillors but, for many living in Cornwall, unconventional suggestions are the only way to sustain a rural life lacking one of the world’s most conventional decent amenities.
“We will be working hard with local people to fight each and every one of these closures,” promises Julia Goldsworthy. “We will not allow this cynical choice of timing to affect our campaign to save our post offices.
“Local people are ready to fight these misguided and destructive proposals.”
