Concerns About Buses Continue

This week has been a vary varied week but local concerns about the changes to the 10/10A bus routes and timetable have dominated. Other things in my diary been varied and includes:

• laying a wreath on Remembrance Sunday
• taking a hen and chicks in to Kites at Cape Cornwall School
• supporting Bosavern Community Farm
• watching a group of unemployed lads being put through their paces at Penzance Fire Station
• being at a meeting that selected Andrew George to be the LibDem Parliamentary candidate for this constituency.

A bit of light relief at home was when our old (female) pig fell in love with our ram (male sheep)!

Buses

Those who take the Cornishman will have seen me receiving a petition at Boscaswell asking First Bus to go back to the old routes for the 10/ 10A bus. I spent time talking with them and then wrote to First Bus myself and I have posted that under news. I have also been in touch with officers and the councillor who takes the lead on transport and have suggested ways that we make sure that the new bus contracts meet the needs of our local rural residents. I have also spoken to our M.P and he is trying to get extra funding to help meet the costs of running a bus service, in a rural area.

Kites

When the staff and children at Kites heard that I had hen and chicks, they wanted to meet them. My husband, Keith, and I took them in last Monday. The children were so excited (and so were the staff and the Head). When I visited before, one of the children could not talk with me but on this occasion he could not stop talking with me. A memory that will linger with me and them, I’m sure.

To find out more about Kites, look in my grants section.

Bosavern Community Farm

Whilst I have never been a key person, doing all the hard work with the project, I have been in the background since April 2010. Back in August 2012 the Lottery Food for All Fund agreed that capital money could be made available towards the purchase of the farm. The challenge has been bridging the gap between this and the sum that Cornwall Council want for the farm. A mortgage of £100,000 is needed to seal the deal but a debt like this could stifle the project.  I would like to see local people coming forward to make donations or interest free loans to reduce the borrowing. In my role as Cornwall Councillor, I am having conversations with the Board and decision makers in the Council to see if there is any other way of supporting the community to buy the farm.

I believe in the ambition of project and hope it can continue the tradition of providing a safe place for people to learn about producing and selling food locally. I also think, that over the next 10 years, growing our own food locally will become more and more important and if the farm is sold off, we will not get it back. It could become and asset to our town. If it can produce and sell good quality food people might be encouraged to shop in St Just more instead of supermarkets in Penzance. Talk is that we want a ‘shopping experience’. Just pop down the farm and you can get that. Help plant the seeds, harvest the crops, eat the food and enjoy good company too!

Next Week

It is planning committee and pensions committee next week. I am also attending a conference about Domestic Violence. Locally I am meeting with our local firemen and who knows what will happen at home with the sheep and the pig. Hopefully I might get a reply back from First bus and if I do, it will go on my website.