Since Cornwall became a unitary authority with the abolition of the six district councils in 2009 things have rapidly deteriorated, democracy has been sidelined and the institution appears to have staggered from one financial disaster to the next often without pausing to catch its breath.
Councillor Mark Kaczmarek is a good example, a former Crofty miner and Cornish Solidarity stalwart he became an excellent ward councillor until he became Cornwall Council Portfolio Holder for Housing, his passion for affordable housing was praiseworthy and genuine until he got into bed with Inox Developers and became the patsy for the Langarth scam and its ‘’free stadium’’ con trick.
Strange how whenever the word ‘’free’’ is invoked people’s eyes glaze over as they become irrational to the point of gullible stupidity because the stadium would be ‘’free’’, Councillor Kaczmarek as relevant portfolio holder at the time eagerly put his name to the increasingly laughable development brief for Langarth, events proved him to be an archetypal ‘’post turtle’’.
DEFINITION OF A POST TURTLE.
An old rancher is talking about politics with a young man from the city when he compares a politician to a ‘’post turtle’’, not really understanding the young man asks the old rancher what a post turtle is?
The old man says ‘’when you are driving down a country road and you see a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that is a post turtle, you know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong there, you wonder who the heck put him there, he can’t get anything done while he is up there and you just want to help the poor dumb thing down’’.
On the highly questionable promise of a ‘’free stadium’’ Inox were awarded planning permission for 1700 homes, a hotel, an old people’s home and various shops on 260 acres of land along the already highly congested A390 Truro Western Corridor.
Despite regular announcements that a start was ‘’imminent’’ nothing at all materialised between 2012 and 2019, it was obvious that Inox were struggling to bring the substantial project forward, Cornwall Councils chief planner at the time Phil Mason quite rightly described the situation as a ‘’mess’’ (one of the few things that particular benighted individual has ever got right).
Predictably the ‘’free’’ stadium proved to be a cruel hoax, to date no stadium ‘’free’’ or otherwise has materialised while predicted construction costs continue to spiral upwards.