My views on Quango’s (Quasi Autonomous Non Governmental Orgabnisations) are well known I have long suspected that the main beneficiaries are the compliant well connected ” Chosen Ones” who eagerly embrace the largesse that participation bestows.
They are however dangerously convienient scapegoats for civil service mandarins and politicians when, as presently , things are going horribly wrong and responsibility needs to be urgently deflected elsewhere.
Presently RDA’s are under the Whitehall microscope and the damning verdict has emerged that collectively they have failed to deliver taxpayer value (surprise, surprise). Everything was fine while the gravy train travelled across a sunlit economic landscape, the momentum of tax yields from bouyant free enterprise papering over the faultlines of incompetence fostered largely by an insane property boom.
The current almost inevitable credit crunch marked the tipping point, the golden eggs have vanished, the demise of the goose assisted by the profligacy and inertia of Quangoland. As the awful truth reverberates around Whitehall the scapegoats are like lambs penned for slaughter.
Having socially engineered a brave new world awash with “paper money” the Government allowed these awful economically debilitating organisations free rein to expand and intrude ever further into our lives and businesses. The old adage about enough rope and hangings has never summed up a situation better.
The past decade of incompetent folly and spin will hurt taxpayers and commerce for a very long time. Hopefully long enough for all concerned to reflect at leisure on the past neglect of their democratic duty to ensure that politicians perform and deliver to the electorate in a competent transparent manner.
The South West RDA (SWERDA) is a case in point encompassing the six counties that constitute John Prescotts fatuous vision of an homogenous”South West Region” defined by his arbitary lines drawn on a map. This artificial region was also eagerly embraced by the detested unaccountable South West Regional Assembly. This expensive waffle shop rapidly became the spiritual home of a motley collection of self seeking county councillors and camp following administrators who became deeply embedded in the system with no tangible benefit to anyone but themslves.
From Cornwall at the tip of the peninsula. so economically deprived as to quaify for European Objective One funding, to the relatively prosperous and culturally separate Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Dorset in the east. This non cohesive hotch potch of counties with vastly different requirements and economic conditions presented a fertile breeding ground for quangocrats who embraced their mission with relish.
Non more so than SWERDA in Cornwall with its objective one honeypot ripe for the plucking. An invasion was mounted with colonial fervour, messianic well connected high fliers such as Sir Michael Lickiss and Dr Tim Williams were parachuted in to lick (no pun intended) the “backward reactionary natives into shape”.
Dr Williams (a Blair crony) will be remembered as a particularly rich example of rootless mercenary behaviour, soon decamping to yet greener quango pastures in Wales leaving a raft of still unfinshed business in Cornwalls post industrial heartland. His legacy, ”Son of SWERDA” the Camborne Redruth Urban Regeneration Company will never enhance his CV. its lack of delivery is a legend in its own blighted lifetime.
This “vision” would be accomplished by sweeping away a timeless evolving landscape that defines Cornwalls hard raw past. The solution? an instant do it yourself “Milton Keynes” kit of endless dreary housing developments, tin sheds for retail and light industrial use, no matter that local wages would not qualify for a mortgage. This was no obstacle to these opinonated know it all’s with their instant solutions and ignorance of and contempt for Cornishr culture and heritage. The solution, sell the houses to incomers who could afford them. “Let the locals become economic migrants, they are used to that its always been that way.”
Another novel solution was to replace the gateway Maxam Power site at Pool with yet another tin shed B&Q retail outlet. No matter that at that time Cambornes total number of hotel beds totalled 22 and this would have been an ideal location to rectify that shortfall with a flagship development on this site. The sterilisation of land for future industrial reuse was accomplished with indecent haste. The unfortunate outcome being a typically bland nondescript gateway to our former industrial heartland instead of the wow factor that would have distinguished this area as a place that really meant business once more.
In fairness there have been some positve outcomes but it could have been so much better if the Irish or Spanish experience were followed. In both places real exciting benefits to infrastructure, employment, culture and lifestyle have accrued. These advantages are far beyond what Cornwall has almost grudgingly been granted as so much of the pot of money has vanished into the bottomless coffers of SWERDA’s administrative machine. With SWERDA’S tacit complicity an army of consultants have also trousered more than their fair share of the avilable funds giving little tangible in return..
We now have a fledgling university that shows great promise, agriculture has had access to funds that have in general been effective and beneficial. The remains of our fishing industry have benefitted from various initiatives most notably the Newlyn small boat pontoons but without cohesion these may yet end up as a marina for visiting yachts. This lack of cohesion has endlessly delayed the new fish market to the point where it is of questionable benefit as the fish may not be available to ensure viability because frustrated progressive vessel owners have gone elsewhere to market their fish.
Tourism has benefitted but there is still a lack of quality hotel accomodation as so many existing ones have been converted into holiday flats for sale or “investment”. If as we are repeatedly reminded tourism is Cornwall’s future it is not good that our customers arriving by car are welcomed by regular monumental traffic chaos in the middle of Bodmin Moor or on the A38 Plymouth corridor. This also applies to our unreliable overpriced rail network which seems to stagger from one crisis to the next always at the expense of its long suffering customers.
The RDA’s failure to effectively address these basic infrastructure issues before immersing itself in a plethora of lesser schemes is an indication of its failure to effectively appreciate Cornwalls unique and ongoing disadvantages.
The native Cornish are not inherently awkward or difficult, we seek merely to preserve and enhance what we have to the greater benefit of the majority,. We feel that our views have relevance, we do not respond well to being patronised or sidelined when the agenda has implications for our future as a uniquely distinctive corner of the British Isles. This, absolutely does not, embrace John Prescots nightmare vision of concreting over our countryside creating a rootless carpetbaggers utopia in the process.
Where do we go from here?, hopefully back to where we started ten wasted years ago, we need, even more, a locally run Cornish development agency as proposed in the beginning by Cornish Solidarity and Mebyon Kernow. This must focus on investment from within rather than the often counterproductve mantra of inward investment and becomes more logical with the imminent creation of a unitary council for Cornwall next year.
This logical step must not be allowed to morph into yet another ”Son of SWERDA” given the credentials of the incumbent majority at County Hall whose hallmark has latterly been docile compliance with SWERDA and the South West Regional Asembly’s disastrous tenure.
It is sincerely hoped for Cornwalls sake that the days of both these costly innefectual abominations are numbered and the usual suspects at County Hall recognise the error of their ways before it is too late..
