The Chamber’s council hustings on 22 April pulled every major party onto one stage and gave them a chair, water (or fizzy pop) and an opportunity to communicate their Party’s position on Cornwall’s economy to members of the Cornwall Chamber of Commerce.
In the opening statements, each panellist referred to collaboration as being intrinsic to their philosophy. Cross-party collaboration, collaboration in the Council Chamber, across constituencies and across borders.
But is that genuinely the case? Do we know what we are collaborating for? What is the goal? What does good look like for Cornwall?
When asked to highlight the greatest opportunity for Cornwall’s economy, each party gave a different response. Alignment with the English Devolution Whitepaper, Cornish pride, high-street rejuvenation, infrastructure and housing, green sector and joined-up business planning were all highlighted as the key opportunities for Cornwall to pursue.
Each of these opportunities have merits and challenges, but it’s clear that there’s no broad political alignment on what the number one priority opportunity is for our local economy to thrive.
What’s more, all candidates accepted that while fairer funding from Whitehall was critical, we shouldn’t be holding our collective breath for big Government cheques to be cut any time soon. So that means, we need to get smarter with what we’ve got and more deliberate about where we are heading.
What I would love to hear is an acknowledgement of where we are currently, and crystal-clear goals and objectives around where we want to be in the future.
Salaries in Cornwall are roughly 12% less than the rest of the country. By what percentage do we want to see that gap reduced in the next council term? Around a quarter of our constituencies live with child-poverty rates above 25 per cent. How much do we want to reduce that and by when?
We have over 20,000 people on a housing waiting list, along with a year-on-year increase of around 8% in monthly rent. What targets do we need to set around accommodation (beyond the fairly arbitrary house-building target)?
Even the touted transport win is modest; single bus fares are capped at £3, but only until the subsidy runs out. So, how do we set targets around frequency, affordability, and availability?
Let’s start with a set of commitments to figures related to poverty, jobs, housing, and mobility, and then align a few opportunities and actions, backed by evidence, to shift the needle. It won’t be perfect, and it won’t solve everything, but it would make it clear the path we’re on and what’s a priority, and importantly, what isn’t.
Co-authoring a strategy with businesses is essential.
The next council has a decent opportunity in its honeymoon period to create the space for positions and perspectives to be put forward, voices to be heard, and healthy conflict to be nurtured, all to sketch out an overarching plan with credible levels of statistics and data.
From there, decisions will need to be made that might not necessarily result in mass agreement, but must result in mass commitment.
A shared destination will form the critical foundation for meaningful collaboration.
We heard a great deal of talk about collaboration and working together at our hustings.
Let’s hope that the next cabinet takes the intent and turns it into action, starting by defining what good looks like. This will enable us to all help each other act on the right opportunities, commit the right resources, and overcome the barriers in a collective effort to achieve our goals.
