By Graham Smith
Cornwall Council leader Leigh Frost has confirmed that absent chief executive Kate Kennally did not tell him about the negotiated exit settlement hastily agreed in May last year in a bid to close down the Gardner-gate spaceport scandal.
The exit settlement – a generous pay-off and a Non Disclosure Agreement for former councillor and cabinet member Louis Gardner – was agreed on 1st May 2025 by Corserv. Corserv told Ms Kennally the same day. This was also polling day in the council elections.
But councillor Frost told a full council meeting today (Tuesday) that he only found out about it at “the same time as everyone else” from the press.
This means that when councillor Frost made a long speech about the Gardner-gate spaceport scandal at his first cabinet meeting on 18th June, he did not know that Mr Gardner was already laughing all the way to the bank.
Neither did councillor Frost know, when he repeated the council’s claim to have referred the scandal to the police, that the “negotiated exit settlement” would fatally undermine the prospects for a conviction. The police did not abandon their investigation until September.
With Ms Kennally now on “extended leave of absence” it will be fascinating to see what documentary evidence can be dug out to shed further light on who knew what, and when.
Councillor Frost’s insistence that he did not know raises fundamental questions about his relationship with currently-absent chief executive Kate Kennally, who has confirmed in a Freedom of Information answer that she knew about it on 1st May 2025.
Councillor Frost answered a public question asked by former Perranporth councillor Steve Arthur.
“I didn’t receive a formal update on the matter, so I don’t have an exact date,” answered councillor Frost. “I would have learned of that settlement at the same time as all the other members, which I believe was in the press.”
It looks like the Gardner-gate scandal will continue to stain the council until some transparency is restored to its relationship with its myriad arms-length companies. Councillor Frost, and his cabinet colleague councillor Adam Paynter, are also the “shareholder board” for those companies.
The chief executive (until three weeks ago, this was indisputably still Ms Kennally) is the shareholder representative. That role is now filled by interim deputy chief executive Andy Keeling, who – as the shareholder representative, in post so far for only 24 hours – will need to be fully up to speed at a cabinet meeting next week.
That cabinet meeting will consider an official report which recommends sweeping changes to the arms-length companies. A radical new suggestion is that the council will in future “spend every pound wisely.”
This will no doubt send a shiver down the spines of those who run Corserv, Treveth and Celtic Sea Power. In recent years they have depended on an ever-ballooning capital spending programme which today sees the council £1.5 billion in debt.
But the source material for the “new commercial strategy” – an investigation and report by consultants Red Quadrant – has not been included in the public papers. The usual Freedom of Information questions are already on their way.
The Gardner-gate spaceport scandal continues to stalk the corridors of New County Hall- who knew what, and when did they know it?