Cornish Housing Crisis - Tories Failing Rural Communities

CORNWALL HOUSING FACTS

• Average house prices in Cornwall have more than doubled in 10 years from £82k to £187k
• First time buyers house costs on average £143,625 in Cornwall meaning that young families need to find around £25,000 deposit.
• Number of families on social housing waiting lists has increased by over 10,000 in 10 years from 8,000 to 18,000.
• 8,000 homes in Cornwall currently sit empty, according to the county’s leading rural environmental group CPRE.

Cornwall 

Monday 30th July 2012

Cornwall Council 's claim that they are "determined" to bring hundreds of empty homes back into use to tackle the shortage of affordable housing has been rubbished by Labour councillor Jude Robinson.

While there are 3,875 long-term empty properties in Cornwall, there are 25,000 people in need of a home.

The council says it aims to bring 130 empty properties back into use each year and is writing to private landlords.

Cornwall cabinet member for housing and planning, councillor Mark Kaczmarek, said: "Some of these properties have been empty for 10, 15 even 20 years and when these are in towns and villages they actually drag down the appearance of the town, they are subject to fire, vandalism, fly tipping and it creates a whole social problem."

However cllr Jude Robinson has called the latest statements "blatant spin" and an insult to thousands of families.

She said the council's statements are an attempt to mask the "complete failure to get to grips with the problem".

Cllr Robinson said: "In September 2010, the same council and the same cabinet member made a very similar announcement about the problem of 3,597 empty homes. It seems that the last two years of determination has increased the problem by 278 empty properties.

“In 2010 the aim was to bring 350 properties back into use by 2013 but there is no information on whether the council has brought even one property back into uses so far. Even if the latest target is achieved and 130 properties reclaimed by 2013, it will not be enough to tackle the rate of increase at 139 per year.

"The Conservative led administration has failed on this. It is an insult to the thousands of families on the waiting list for homes to try and spin this failure into a positive news story for the administration"

Cornwall Council Election May 2013

Tory Government - Raw Deal For Rural Communities - By Mary Creagh

Rural heartland -
feeling full force of ministers' mistakes

Mary Creagh Labour’s Shadow Environment Secretary, on the raw deal being served to rural communities by the Government.

Western Morning News, Saturday 28 July 2012

The recent dairy crisis has shown that markets alone do not guarantee a fair deal for farmers or the countryside. We are now in the longest recession for 50 years with rural communities paying a high price for the failures of this out-of-touch Government. Defra ministers talk a good game on food security, yet as the dairy crisis loomed, ministers were asleep on the job.

The race to the bottom on farm-gate prices is bad for farmers and, ultimately, bad for consumers. We need an end to one-sided contracts and the reckless behaviour of the big milk processors who are squeezing dairy farmers for all they can. Last week the Government woke up to the scale of the problem and started to bang heads together. But why did it take a milk blockade for ministers to act? Labour wants to see the Government strengthen the role of the Groceries Code Adjudicator to ensure a fair deal across the supermarket supply chain with the power to fine companies who breach the code. Yet ministers oppose giving the Adjudicator the power to fine.


There are wider problems in the economy in Devon and Cornwall, and these are tough times for rural communities and businesses. This out-of- touch Government has made the wrong choices on the economy, choking off growth and the fragile recovery. The South West did not receive a penny from the £9.4 billion promised for rail projects by the government earlier this month. Worse still, as the WMN has reported, ministers are looking to cut direct trains from Penzance to Paddington by a third under the new Great Western franchise agreement.

There is a cost of living crisis spreading across our towns and villages. Living costs in rural communities are already 10-20% higher than in urban areas. There has been a massive growth in food poverty as families struggle with higher living costs, lower wages and welfare changes. The leading food charity FareShare estimates that 16% of people within the South West are living in food poverty, unable to feed themselves on regular basis. Earlier this month, the Devon and Cornwall Food Association extended its reach from Plymouth to the whole of Devon, redistributing food to local foodbanks. Yet one of the first things the Tory-led government did was to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales. The board guarantees minimum pay and conditions for 23,500 rural workers in the South West. Axing it will take £9 million a year out of England's rural economy through lost sick and holiday pay alone. The last thing we need is a race to the bottom on wages. This will take money out of the rural High Street, local shops and pubs.

House of Commons Library research, which I commissioned, revealed families in rural areas have been disproportionately hit by the removal of the tax credit second income threshold. This protected the £545 per annum child tax credit family element for households earning less than £40,000 and helped 15% of families with children in rural areas (compared to 10% in urban areas). Rural councils, which tend to have older and less deprived populations receive lower grant allocations, spend less on social care, charge more for home care and allocate lower personal budgets than local authorities serving younger, more urban and more deprived populations. The Commission for Rural Communities reported last month that young people in rural areas face extra barriers finding work and accessing training. The rate at which young people become NEETS (young people not in education employment or training) is rising faster in rural areas than urban ones. Long term youth unemployment has more than trebled in the last year across Devon and Cornwall.

What was the Government's response to the Commission for Rural Communities? They abolished it. In the last two years, Defra ministers have failed to get a grip with the issues facing rural communities. They have cut funding for flood defences by 30% and then asked communities to come up with the cash for flood defences themselves. Their proposals to sell off the nation's forests met huge protests and they backed back down. The same happened with national nature reserves and changes to reduce environmental protection in planning law. And wild animals in circuses. It is not just Cameron and Osborne getting the big decisions wrong, and it is not just people in urban centres who are affected. It is coalition heartlands like the South West who are feeling the force of government incompetence. Rural communities deserve better.

Remember Cornish Spanish Civil War Hero - Pat Glasson

Patrick ‘Harry’ Glasson:
Cornishman in the Spanish Civil War

James Whetter, in the Cornish Banner, No 129, August 2007

Patrick Glasson was born in 1910, the son of a Cornishman and an Irish lady, nee Byrne. Their home was probably at Tolgas Lane, Harris Mill, Redruth – this was the address of his next of kin according to the International Brigade records. His parents split up when he was two and his father emigrated to Australia. Patrick probably had his schooling at nearby pool school and after leaving worked as a blacksmith at one of the many smithys in the area.

He gave up this trade after a while and joined the British Army, serving in the Wiltshire Regiment ‘for many years’ until 1935. He was clearly a fit and strong young man and went round the fairs as a boxer and wrestler.

According to his cousin Reuben Byrne, also a regular soldier, whom he met in 1935 at Crownhill barracks, Plymouth, on leaving the army for a few months back in Redruth, he decided to join the International Brigade. No doubt he went to London and was vetted at the King Street headquarters of the Communist Party.

Having passed muster he seems to have gone to France with the intention of joining the Brigade in Spain in late 1936 or early 1937 but shortly after was deported for misdemeanours committed in Paris. In his memoir, Entering the Conflict, Frederick Ernest Clarke, told how he had met up with him in late March 1937. Clarke had gone to the Communist Party HQ at King Street on the 20th. While he was receiving instructions for his departure from Mr Robson of the Central Committee

“another comrade arrived, by the name of Peter [sic] Glasson, a typical British Tommy and a brother communist. I was to be his mentor form that time until we got into Spain. I received money to buy him trousers, cap, etc. in an attempt to make him look like a weekender in Paris. The result was not very gratifying! Afterwards, I bought him dinner and he took me to Aldgate where his friend was to take leave of him at Whitechapel Library. He was given into my charge, as his first attempt to reach Spain had been a failure due to his getting drunk in Paris, hitting a taxi driver and landing up in a French Prison for three weeks.”

The buying of tickets for their rail journey from Victoria station was

“something of a carnival. We were all shapes and sizes and all classes and creeds, but all going to the same place and for the same reason – apparently! Of course, not one of us knew anyone else and not a word was spoken as to our destination or our mission; but a crowd of men trying so hard to hide something, and all waiting in the same waiting room for the same train became very transparent to those others who know what is going on.”

There were about 25 of them and they had yellow “Passing Show” cards concealed on their persons to identify them to contacts when they arrived at the Gare du Nord station in Paris. Two plain clothes policemen examining tickets at the Victoria Station barrier stopped Patrick when he went through, asked him how long he was staying in France and how much money he had with him. Clarke “stuck up an attitude of indignation, enquired if our tickets were in order, stated that Glasson was with me and that I had sufficient money for us to enjoy our week-end in Gay Paree!”

They got on the night train eventually but Clarke felt distinctly uneasy for the police were then seriously enforcing the non-intervention pact to the fullest limits.

“The prospect of Glasson banging one of them and landing us in jail was not a very rosy picture, and from then on I lost interest as his guardian and keeper. From Newhaven to Paris was a constant strain of watchfulness for me.”

They reached the Gare du Nord station on Sunday morning, 21st March. They were glad to get out of the train with its hard wooden seats. People were flashing their ‘Yellow Passing Show’ cards and Clarke was nervous that the police would pick them up and jail them on the spot. They were approached by a couple of Brits, collected together and taken to a café just outside the station. There they were given food tickets for a certain café and some money which they mostly spent on cigarettes and “the foul tasting onion flavoured beer of France.” They were billeted in “pensions” nearby which were comfortable and clean though they had their breakfast in another hotel and all other food in a workman’s café which was situated opposite the Metro in a wide cobbled street.

Also amongst them awaiting instructions were Americans and Canadians, all of whom possessed passports which gave them a lot more freedom. Lacking official papers of any kind the British party were like “vagabonds”. They envied the North Americans who were able to go sightseeing to the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, etc, something they could not do.

Still in Paris on Saturday 17th April Patrick wrote a letter to his cousin Reuben Byrne:

Dear Reauban [sic],

Just a few lines hoping to find you in the best of health. I am going away fro some time, and I don’t know when I will be back in England. Well, old boy I am going into an Army but not the British army, it is the Spanish I am fighting for the Workers. I don’t know when I will ever write again, give my love to Cousin Kathleen, and Aunti Minnie and uncle Jack at Trouro. I might get married out here, if all goes well in the end.

I am your ever loving Cousin, Harry.

PS. I was wrestling in Paris, the other day at a fair ground, I beat a gaint Itialian in one minute.

Harry.

(Though called Patrick he [had] became known as ‘Harry’.)

Subsequently they had a tough struggle getting over the Pyrenees on foot. Clarke had a narrow escape since his shoes had become so shiny that he slipped from the path into a great drift of snow. He was saved by a bricklayer from Hammersmith, George Poustie.

“As I slipped, he hung on to me with all his strength and stopped me from sliding over the edge into the depths below. All the others had gone on and neither of us had enough strength to breathe of shout and, after a grim silent struggle George managed to pull me back onto the path.”

They seem to have got into Spain by 13th May and three days later were at Albacete, the British battalion’s base south east of Madrid. Patrick then enlisted in the International Brigade. He sent a postcard back to ‘Auntie Beatie’ which depicted a woman holding a child in her arms with silhouettes of planes above and an inscription in French, ‘Save my child’ – “This what I am fighting for these Spanish workers, these planes bombing these poor women and babies.”

As well as demonstrating his commitment to the cause the messages show he was in touch with several members of his family in Cornwall. As well as his cousin Reuben Byrne, these was cousin Kathleen, Auntie Minnie, Uncle jack at Truro and Aunt Beattie who seems to have been his next of kin. It sounds as if his mother may have died by this stage.

He took part in the Brigade’s offensive at Brunete west of Madrid from 6th July but was killed the on the 20th July. In August 1937 his relations received letters from Communist Party general secretary, Harry Pollitt, and from the Party secretariat informing then that Pat Glasson had been killed in action on 20th July at Brunete. Later his Aunt Beattie received his death certificate signed by the Mayor of Brunete.

In is memoir Clarke said: “He eventually died in Spain, I believe on the Brunete Front. He was a good soldier and a sincere comrade, a little coarse, but nevertheless a likeable person in many ways”.

In July 1986 a bronze plaque was put up at the divisional office of the Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section of the AUEW (now the Manufacturing Science and Finance Union) in Coldharbour Road, Redland, Bristol, commemorating the nine volunteers from the south west- including Patrick, who were killed in the Spanish Civil War. The unveiling was organized by the then TASS divisional organizers, D Yeoman and D Perkins, and took place with a number of International Brigade veterans present. Its inscription reads:

"To commemorate those volunteers from Bristol and the South West who fought and died in Spain in defence of Liberty."

Note
Rumours remain that about a dozen young men, from either Padstow or Port Isaac, were sufficiently concerned about Franco's assault on democracy in Spain to volunteer themselves as soldiers in a foreign war. With no training or preparation, they kissed their wives and girlfriends goodbye and set sail. Within days of their arrival they were killed - and neither of my informants was clear about which side had shot them.

Labour's Great Cornish By Election Victory

First Labour and Coop Councillor at Cornwall Council

January 14, 2011

by Jude Robinson
Labour Councillor - Cornwall

It feels terrific to have been elected as the first Labour Councillor on Cornwall’s still new Unitary Council and as the first Co-operative Party Councillor.

The election results were

Mike Champion MK 32

Paul Holmes Liberal 61

Jacqui Merrick Green 31

Anna Pascoe Lib Dem 152

Denise Pascoe Conservative 203

Jude Robinson Labour & Co-op 230

I managed to get four hours sleep but am now sitting in my home – yesterday’s campaign centre – surrounded by soggy leaflets, canvass sheets and coats thinking about all the work ahead and still excited by it all. Strange people, politicians – and I suppose I am officially one now as an elected member.

The Unitary elections were a real low for Labour in Cornwall. In this seat in May 2009, we got 11% of the vote and came fifth. This time, we won with 32% share of the vote.

There has been a huge amount of good will coming my way, from people in all parties and I am very touched by that. My parties, Labour and Co-op, have been fantastic and to have had such support from members and friends all over the country has been both amazing and daunting. It is a lot to live up to and after finally finding the time to get my very unruly hair cut today, I have a lot of work to do.

I owe a huge thank you to all those people who helped: local members and those from other constituencies in Cornwall, the team from Plymouth, friends from Bristol, Devon, Linda and Benny Gilroy and all the supporters in Camborne, who voted for me and Labour even though they were showered with Lib Dem leaflets telling them it was pointless.

More people in Cornwall should go with their hearts and vote Labour. It would surprise everyone to realise just how much support there is here from people who have been persuaded that they have to vote Lib Dem to ‘keep the Tories out’.

Well Cornish lads are fishermen
And Cornish lads are miners too
But when the fish and tin are gone
what are the Cornish boys to do?

In 1998 Crofty tin mine (Camborne) closed, despite a massive campaign by the 200 tin miners and their union the Transport & General Workers Union(now Unite),

The defiant words painted on the walls of the Crofty tin mine (Camborne) read

"Cornish lads are fishermen and Cornish lads are miners too but now the fish and tin are gone what are Cornish boys to do?"

To which Camborne in 2011 has answered by voting Labour X

Country Standard Note:

Lib Dem Leaflet put out during the Camborne By election Jan 2011

Labour's Cornish Voice - Fighting Coalition Cuts

Spending Review’s education cuts could be disastrous for Cornwall

http://www.labourmatters.com/author/cornwall-labour/

Commenting on today’s Spending Review, Jude Robinson said: “Without a credible program for growth, the government does not have a credible plan to reduce the deficit. The experience of Ireland shows that just slashing budgets causes economic as well as social problems and can make the deficit worse.
“The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are taking a huge gamble with the jobs of people already stretched by the impact of the global recession. In Cornwall, the impact on housing could be huge as incomes are low and housing costs high, so changes to housing benefit, the slashing of the budgets for affordable and social housing and tax credit cuts will have serious effects on working people.
“It is a shame that George Osborne chose to abolish the Educational
Maintenance Allowance without describing what will be in its place – this only adds to fears that measures to help students from low income households to stay in education will not be continued effectively.
“Higher education cuts could also be disastrous for Cornwall.

Labour's Cornish Voice

The monthly newspaper, Labour’s Cornish Voice, was started in September 1948. It replaced the Cornish Labour News, to which AL Rowse contributed in the 1930s, when he twice stood as Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Penryn and Falmouth.

The Cornish Labour News had been edited by journalist C

laude Berry, who was later employed by the West Briton for 34 years, becoming editor.

Labour’s Cornish Voice was a sister paper of other regional editions, of which the best known is Labour’s Northern Voice.

In the early 1950s, the paper carried reports of local meetings which show that Labour Party branch meetings all over Cornwall debated policy and international events, as well as organised fundraising and campaign support.

Vital role

The newspaper also published reports from Westminster and articles by leading Labour politicians, as well as topical cartoons.

It played a vital role in building Labour Party membership and funds across Cornwall, with individual party members develo

ping sales rounds of up to 100 copies or more.

The Cornish paper had four local editors.

The first was Richard Wevell, who launched it from Liskeard in 1948.

Secondly, HW Kenyon, who was also chairman of the Cornwall Federation of Labour Parties and based at his home in Perranporth.

Kenyon’s departure to take up a job in London in 1951 was follo

wed by a holding editorship for three months by Cornwall Federation of Labour Parties secretary FO Rilstone of Penhallow.

From February 1952, Michael Steuart was the longest-serving editor, whose activities were based at 4 Webber Hill in Penwerris after Falmouth Labour Party purchased the property in May that year.

Campaigning on new constituency boundaries at the general election in February 1950, Labour overtook the Liberal vote share in Cornwall for the first time.

Frank Harold Hayman, who had stood unsuccessfully for the old Camborne constituency in 1945, was elected as the new Falmouth and Camborne constituency’s MP.

Labour was in second place to the Conservatives in the Truro constituency, which included St Austell, and in St Ives, where a young Peter Shore contested the seat for Labour.

In Bodmin and in North Cornwall the Liberals remained in second place in elections which were contested by Sir Dingle Foot and John Foot, two Liberal supporting brothers of the Labour MP Michael Foot.

As the 1951 general election approached, Labour’s Cor

nish Voice declared: “We want five members of Parliament and at least 75,000 Labour votes next time.”

In January 1951, the Labour Party appointed a full-time agent for Truro, Mr Hughes, a trade union organiser from St Austell.

Mr Hughes attributed Labour’s growing membership in Cornwall partly to the “previously Liberal, voters … our new friends who have joined up from the ranks of the old Liberal Party, and there are many of them”.

In celebration of Labour’s golden jubilee in 1951, St Dennis Silver Prize Band led members of the Labour Party, trades unions, and Co-op branches proudly through the streets of St Austell.

A Labour League of Youth dance in Camborne attracted 200 young people in August 1951.

And 600 Labour Party members attended a campaign meeting at Penzance in December 1950.

“They came in coaches and by bus from Helston, Mullion, St Just, Sennen, St Erth, St Ives, Pendeen, Ludgvan and Penzance,” it was reported.

Local member Mrs BM Arthur was reported as regularly selling more than 100 copies of Labour’s Cornish Voice in Hayle.

St Ives was the third constituency in Cornwall to appoint a full-time agent in the run-up to the 1951 general election.

At the general election in October 1951, for the first time, one in three electors in Cornwall voted Labour.

The Liberal vote in Cornwall at the same election fell to less than one in six (32,573 votes).

Increased

Reflecting on the fact that Labour had increased its vote in Truro by more than 4,000, candidate Mr Newby commented in Labour’s Cornish Voice: “Here, as in the country as a whole, it has been proved that almost half the people believe firmly in Labour Britain and the achievements of the last six years.”

Nationally, Labour’s share of the vote increased to 48.8 per cent, but the Conservatives won more seats.

Commenting on national radio on the result which ended his six years as Prime Minister, Clement Atlee MP provided this short analysis: “Our defeat is not due to any falling away of Labour support, but to the fact that in most constituencies Liberals voted Conservative, not Labour.”

The 1951 general election had put Labour into opposition, but party membership in Cornwall continued to rise.

Labour councillors in Falmouth, which still had a Labour MP, were quick to denounce the impact of the new Conservative Government’s policies, particularly their lack of support for local housing compared to the 1945-51 completion of more than 3,000 new Cornish council homes.

Six months after the Conservatives returned to government, in April 1952, Labour’s Cornish Voice reported that there were 15 active Labour Party branches in the Truro constituency.

Throughout the early 1950s, Labour’s Cornish Voice published reports of active Labour Party branches at St Dennis, Foxhole, Nanpean, St Austell, St Blazey, St Stephen, Grampound Road, Tregony, Truro, Newlyn East, Goonhavern, Perranporth, St Agnes, Mount Hawke, Chacewater, Portloe, and St Mawes.

By 1951, there were more than 1,300 Labour Party members in the Truro constituency.

The newspapers are of interest to political, Cornish and family historians, who have every reason to be grateful to Mrs Newby, whose obituary appeared in the West Briton on July 22, for saving and donating her copies of Labour’s Cornish Voice so that they can be used by researchers.

Copies of the Labour’s Cornish Voice newspaper are available to researchers at the Royal Institution of Cornwall library at the Museum in Truro.

Originals form part of the Modern British Collection at the British Library.

Falmouth Labour Club

In May 1952, one week after the Cornwall County Council elections, Falmouth Labour Party paid £1000 to purchase 4 Webber Hill in Penwerris, one of three county wards held by Labour at the time. Falmouth Labour Club opened to provide a social meeting place and political education for working people, occupying the ground floor and hillside garden. The upstairs rooms were used for meetings of the local Party, and office accommodation occupied initially by Michael Steuart, who was the longest-serving editor of Labour’s Cornish Voice from February 1952.

St Ives 1928 By Election Labour candidate a Reverend Fred Hopkins, a Methodist Minister and former brickyard worker from the age of just ten years. Hopkins fought an number of elections for Labour in the South West.