New strategy being launched to help Cornwall's China Clay area
Officials want to see more funding and resources
Cornwall councillors representing the China Clay area have launched a bid to give the community more of a voice and more help from Cornwall Council.
A cross-party group has helped to draw up a new strategy for the area which they hope will lead to improved fortunes for Clay Country.
With a population of more than 28,000 the group of villages and hamlets which make up the China Clay Area is bigger than many towns in Cornwall. However, despite this councillors say they often feel forgotten when Cornwall Council makes decisions about where funding and resources should go.
As a result councillors have now worked with council officers to draw up the new strategy which sets out a number of areas where they think more help should be provided to ensure that the China Clay area can thrive.
Dick Cole, leader of Mebyon Kernow and veteran councillor for the China Clay area, said that people in the area feel they are overlooked by those making the decisions in Cornwall, that they are somehow penalised due to their geography.
When Cllr Cole came to makie a presentation for senior officers to explain how China Clay area people feel he used an image of a Tusken Raider from Star Wars, saying that it was an alien creature which communicates in grunts and roars is how people in the area feel they are seen by decision makers.
He is proud of the strategy saying: “We hope that the council will give us some support and an assurance that investment will go into our communities.”
And he said: “We have been asking politely for a number of years for Clay Country to be taken more seriously by various administrations of the council. The lack of any real answers led us to actually work for ourselves to come up with a strategy to get action and investment across our local parishes.”
He adds: “At the moment we are trying to get Cornwall Council to work with us and provide us with the funding and support that will take us forward. We want to make a real difference to the China Clay area and we think this strategy will help us to do that.
“We had the towns vitality fund announced recently which is looking to provide help for 22 towns in Cornwall – we have a population of 28,000, which is more than some of the towns, but we don’t get anything.
“There has also been an audit of council assets and we have found there is very little in this area – it just shows that there hasn’t really been any thought about this area and the people who live here. When the unitary council was set up they aimed to put a council hub in every one – they did in 17 of the 19 areas, Clay Country didn’t have one.
“There seems to be an assumption that people here will travel to access services, which doesn’t seem fair.”
The foreword to the new strategy sums up the current situation neatly, it explains: “Our Area comprises a range of villages – each with a distinct sense of its own identity – who share an industrial heritage. Yet it also has significant social and economic problems.
“It has a population larger than almost all Cornish towns, yet misses out on investment and the provision of local services because interventions from the UK Government, Cornwall Council and other service providers are largely focused on urban areas.
“Cornwall Council often argues that Westminster politicians focus too much on metropolitan centres and fail to understand the needs of places such as Cornwall. We would respectfully suggest that Cornwall Council has fallen into the same trap by disproportionately focusing its efforts onto Cornwall’s main towns.
“We are proud to represent the China Clay Area as councillors and believe it is time that the Council gives the area the recognition that it merits and the investment that it deserves.”
The strategy has been drawn up over a significant period of time and has involved councillors who represented the area in the last council as well as those currently elected. They are Cllr Cole, Fred Greenslade, Matt Luke, Mike McLening, Sally-Anne Saunders, John Wood and Peter Guest. Leading the work for the council was community link officer Tasha Davis.
Among the “asks” in the strategy is an “up-to-date and bespoke employment strategy to support and expand key strategic sites, while bringing forward incubator units for smaller or new businesses”.
It also calls for an audit of public transport in the area and research into the links between different Clay communities – Cllr Cole explained that in some parts of Clay Country it is difficult to access public transport which links the villages in the area.
The strategy also identifies a need for an audit of public services in the China Clay area and comparison with other parts of Cornwall “in order to secure a guarantee from Cornwall Council and other public bodies that Clay Country will get a fairer share of service provision in the future”.
As well as calling for the council to help the strategy also identifies other agencies which could support Clay Country – it calls for a request to Historic England to agree a Heritage Action Zone in the area to protect the industrial heritage. It also asks for Historic England to assess historic remains from the clay industry and other mining features for protection.
The strategy also has other calls covering Covid-19 recovery, climate change, health and wellbeing and housing. Now complete the strategy will be presented to Cornwall Council for consideration.