Frustrated by sad the decline of Hayle

(The original full, unedited letter)

My name is Geoff Holman and I have lived in Hayle all my life, nearly 50 years, and for all my adult life I have watched this town decline.

I have recently been to a number of Public Participation sessions at Hayle Town council, to ask a number of questions about issues in the town.

At the meeting of last week, I was there whilst a presentation took place on the Stirling Service transport initiative which would, if it succeeds enhance and integrate facilities for travel in Hayle, St Erth, St Ives and the wider district. This would be of great benefit to the area which is already suffering from the overuse of cars on roads which cannot cope.

However, 12 minutes into this presentation, unbelievably, the speaker was interrupted and asked how much longer this would take! This attitude is typical of the council who should be all ears regarding ways to improve life in Hayle. It is the reason so very few members of the public bother to go to council meetings nor ask or expect support for anything.

Hayle Town Council is ruled by a small numbers of councillors, some unelected, who cajole or harangue their fellow councillors into bypassing issues which are important to the town. Some of these issues are the Harbour walls falling down,  and massive amounts of rubbish being illegally tipped all over the quays from Foundry Viaduct through South Quay to North Quay and up to Harvey’s Towans.

No attempt has been made to even consider trying to get something done about these issues. This seems to be for no better reason than for this small number of councillors’ own personal power and sense of importance.

These same people are prepared to stand by and allow hundreds of thousands of tonnes of beach sand, part of Hayle’s ‘three miles of golden sand’ to be stripped off the beach and sold. They appear despite the adoption as policy at full District Council of the Babtie Report, to be in denial of there being anything wrong in this removal. Cllr Owen Philp often quotes selectively from this document in order to back his claim that the depletion of the beach level is entirely due to natural processes. Indeed at the last council meeting when I asked how the beach level had been reduced by one metre referred to in the Babtie Report, Cllr Philp claimed the wind had blown it away! WHERE DO WE GET ‘EM?

He has been asked but refuses to offer full quotes from this report which would describe the natural processes being exacerbated by mechanical removal; instead he prefers to bluster away any attempt to prevent him misleading fellow councillors in this way. Naturally if they want the real quotation they can read the document for themselves, but presumably cannot be bothered to.

These councillors are also in denial of the many, many clear statements of people both local and visitors alike who are horrified at the state the beach. The potential loss of tourism because of this, often remarked on in these complaints, seems to be of no consequence to them although Hayle depends heavily upon tourism.

The Shoreline Management plan, a DEFRA document, offers the same advice- that conservation not destruction is not just better policy, but essential. Some councillors have refused to even consider this.

They prefer instead to look the other way from the dirty dangerous harbour and access road which leads to the rock and metal strewn mess that has replaced the beach. Instead in an incredible display of denial Owen Philp and Shirley Oliver and others have the cheek to stand in line for a photo shot in front of a plaque at Hayle station which claims the beach as ‘Northern Europe’s finest.’

These particular councillors scupper any attempts to discuss the reality of the situation or any attempts to rectify it.

I believe all this goes on in pursuit of personal power and an inability to acknowledge responsibility for their past mistakes. This sad mind set means that they need to seek out individuals or groups who they can scapegoat should they need to in the event of yet again things going wrong over the harbour development.

Cllr Philp’s obsession with ‘nothing going on the rates’ means he and those he can cajole into agreeing with him failed to make Penwith District Council use the powers they certainly have to compel successive owners of the harbour to mend the walls or maintain the fabric in any way, or even clear up the illegally dumped filth festooning the quays.

Anyone like me who even suggests that this should be done, is accused of being ‘anti-harbour development’. I am not nor have I ever been anti harbour development, quite the opposite; what I am against is the dereliction, destruction and decay of the last 30 years. This could and should have been prevented, but no pressure from the council has been applied to make this happen. What Cllr Philp fails to understand is that as the harbour has been in private ownership for over 20 years it would cost the owner not the rate payer for the repairs and clean up. Meanwhile vast quantities of Hayle tax payers money is diverted to projects in Penzance and St Ives.

The only thing I am totally against is another 30 years of total neglect.

This problem all started about 20 years ago when Cllr Brian Capper invited Peter de Savory to buy the harbour. The whole council fell in behind him blindly supporting the grandiose scheme which included 1500 houses. Anyone brave enough to sound a note of caution was almost roasted alive. By totally backing this horse in a one horse race there was no fall back position.  Peter de Savory went bust after getting full consent for his plans, when the banks pulled the plug on him in the face of a declining housing market and an economic downturn.

These councillors were left with more egg on their faces than Humpty Dumpty but instead of admitting mistakes and looking at viable alternatives as advised, they literally sat back and waited for another horse to back. Along came Rosshill Ltd and again there was full back up to this one horse race, descending into farce with a suppression of debate and a  shameful ‘you are either for us or against us’ campaign.

Still nothing was made to happen over the decaying quays or the filth and rubbish dumped on the harbour every year –for 6 years- with an accelerated sand removal operation to keep a tottering Rosshill afloat! Still they would not question whether they had backed the right horse, hoping that one of their Messiahs would deliver.

Over 20 years have passed and these councillors have backed not one but two donkeys in one horse races.  Neither even started the race let alone finished the job-Not one of these councillors has apologised to the people of Hayle for not checking these donkeys out. Instead they look to blame others (English Heritage, RSPB, other individuals or groups…) to create scapegoats for their own failure.

In my opinion they have disgraced themselves and made Hayle Town Council a laughing stock. Great men and the inventions of Richard Trevithick , their companies –Harvey’s of Hayle and the Cornish Copper Company-made Hayle Harbour one of the greatest in the world. I believe Cllrs Owen Philp, Brian Capper and Shirley Oliver, and their like have brought my town, Hayle, to its knees, all to save their faces.

This council sits back and allows itself to be told what it is and is not getting. The last minute withdrawal of the promised Fire Station by Cornwall County Council is the latest example of how this happens.  They never discuss, demand or negotiate for the people they are supposed to represent. Consequently the town has lost almost all the few services it had, with an ever increasing number of houses being built.  However, at a pre Christmas meeting at Town council Roger Harnett, Planning Chief at PDC when asked about the number of houses being built in Hayle said, and I quote ‘More houses don’t necessarily mean more people. We have viewed Hayle as a sleeping giant.’ This stupefying comment went unchallenged.

If and when anything goes right of course, they will all be there to claim that it was they who got things right in the end!

These people do not obtain, read or discuss any important documents which could lead to improvements in Hayle. If their attention is brought to any of them, such as the Planning Policy Guidelines PPG 15 &16, the Local Plan, the Shoreline Management plan, the Babtie report, the Bevan Ashford report, Cllr Philp who attempts to be the one man policy maker of Hayle Town Council, will dismiss them stating ‘we don’t want nothing to do with that’ stifling any chance, albeit remote, that the council may want to debate these documents. If these people want to be councillors why don’t they obtain these documents for themselves?

Tragically because of this, like so many sheep, these people make planning recommendations without a clue about the overview. Most seriously this farce has allowed Penwith District Council to by-pass Hayle almost totally because it suits them to do so, while these people are busy in petty backbiting, behind the scenes stitch ups and back stabbing for the sake of their own egos.

Ask yourself, what has Penwith District Council done for the town in the last 30 years? Where are our facilities, our leisure centre, and our youth facilities? People are moaning the INGs plans do not contain any of these, but it is not for them to provide these it is Penwith District Council who should have been doing so over the decades. Relying on the private development at Hayle to provide these facilities would mean that Penwith would not have to spend any money at all and will continue to divert funds elsewhere.

During the Christmas break I watched Hayle kids digging amongst the filth on South Quay to struggle to build mountain bike ramps from the dumped rubbish. This would not be seen in St Ives and Penzance.

“What about the Foundry project!” these councillors cry when you suggest investment has been short in Hayle. Well let’s look at this wonderful project shall we? Hayle was told this would be a regeneration to provide a Heritage Centre and collection of memorabilia and artefacts from the history I talked about earlier. But where is this plan now? We have instead a new build of the most unsympathetic kind you could possibly imagine for an historical site. Of approx 20 office units only 4 are let after two years of being available. Ask your Town councillors what happened there?

This only goes to prove that no matter how hi-tech the office system on offer, no dynamic business is going to rent space in, bring clients to or themselves drive through, under or past the derelict, decaying filthy area next to these offices.

It gives me no pleasure to describe my home town in this way; it is unbelievable that it should be like this, I lay the blame for its desperate state at the door of these people. However, because I have dared to draw attention to these things it is me that they say is bringing my town down, doing it damage. Councillor Capper actually said this to me.

After reading this letter I ask you, am I the one who has tipped the thousands of tons of muck, carried the beach away, pushed the harbour walls down or stood by and let all this happen?

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