How your councillor voted on the 47,500 house target

On December 16th 2014 the full Council voted to approve the submission of Cornwall Council’s Local Plan, including its target of a minimum of 47,500 houses. By this time, because most councillors had failed over the previous three years to question the evidence base produced by their planning officers, there was heavy pressure on them to agree the Plan. The Council’s leaders argued that without a strategic plan Cornwall was ‘at the mercy of developers’.

Councillors therefore were offered little choice. They could either reject the target and the Plan and tell their officers to come up with a robust argument for a lower target based on the impact of continuing present growth rates and the inadequacy of the database. This is something they should have done, but abysmally failed to do, at least two years before. Or they could accept a plan that effectively rubber stamps the current relatively high rate of housing and population growth Cornwall has to endure. Resistance in December was therefore limited. The Plan was agreed overwhelmingly by 76 votes to 19, with five abstentions and 23 councillors not present.

[Update: Since writing the above the recorded vote for December’s meeting has appeared on the Council’s website. By this time, only the Conservatives were left opposing the Plan and its 47,500 house target and only just over half of them voted against or abstained. A very high proportion – almost a third – did not vote or were absent. Ukip’s five councillors were split down the middle, while all the other groups – Independents, Lib Dems, Labour, MK and Green- voted solidly for the Plan’s submission to the Secretary of State. Three Lib Dems voted against or abstained: Cllrs Fonk, Farrington and Glenton Brown.]

The previous time the Council discussed the 47,500 house target was in January 2014.  Then, the Plan was agreed by 62 votes to 31, with 10 abstentions and 20 councillors absent. Here are the details of councillors’ vote on the substantive motion at that point, organised by political party. You can jump down to the party here …

Independents
Liberal Democrats
Conservatives
Labour
Ukip
MK
Green Party

Independents
The majority of Independents voted for the Plan with a minority of around a quarter abstaining or voting against.

Voted for	Voted for	Abstained or voted against	Not present
Callan	Coombe	Biscoe	Burden
Dolley	Eathorne-Gibbons	Curnow	Deeble
Egerton	Ellison	Hawken	Harvey
German	Greenslade	Holmes	Rule
Harris	Haycock	King	J.Thomas
Hayward	Holley	P.Martin	A.Toms
Kaczmarek	Lugg	Rich
May	McKenna	Saunby
A.Mitchell	Penny	I.Thomas
Pollard	Trubody
Wallis	Wood

Liberal Democrats
The Lib Dems voted overwhelmingly for the Plan, 83% voting for and just two councillors abstaining or voting against

Voted for	Voted for	Abstained or voted against	Not present
Austin	Geoff Brown	Fonk	Batters
M.Brown	Bull	Nolan	Glenton Brown
Buscombe	Candy		Dolphin
Chopak	Duffin		Pearce
Farrington	Folkes
Frank	George
Hannaford	Hobbs
Hughes	James
Kenny	Kerridge
P.Mitchell	Parsons
Paynter	Rix
D.Rogerson	S.Rogerson
Rotchell	Rowe
Scrafton	Sleeman
Taylor	Watson

Conservatives
Two thirds of Tory councillors voted against the Plan or abstained. The Conservative group had moved an unsuccessful amendment previously in favour of a lower target of 33,000 houses. However, there was some scepticism and suspicion from the other parties at this. Conservatives in the previous ruling administration from 2009 to 2013 had been the most vociferous in favour of a very high housing target and massive ‘growth’. And of course, the Conservative/Lib Dem Government’s new centralised planning framework had made it much more difficult (though hardly impossible) to argue for a lower target. Furthermore, the proportion of Conservatives who absented themselves from this vote was higher than the other parties, indicating that there was not exactly unanimity about the new line.

Voted for	Voted for	Abstained or voted against	Not present
S.Mann	Pugh	Chamberlain	Bay
Sanger		Eddowes	Dyer
		Ellis	Evans
		Ferguson	Flashman
		Fitter	Gorman
		French	R.Mann
		Hall	T.Martin
		Harding
		Hatton
		Jewell
		Keeling
		Lambshead
		Maddern
		Nicholas
		Pascoe
		Pearn
		Penhaligon
		Shuttlewood
		Stoneman
		White
		Wilkins

Labour

Voted for	Voted for	Abstained or voted against	Not present
Atherton	Bunney		Kirk
Dwelly	Olivier		Moyle
H.Toms	Webber

Ukip

Voted for	Voted for	Abstained or voted against	Not present
		Blakeley	Keogh
		Elliott
		Hicks
		Lewis
		McWilliams

MK

Voted for	Voted for	Abstained or voted against	Not present
		Cole
		Jenkin
		Long
		Luke

Green Party

Voted for	Voted for	Abstained or voted against	Not present
Andrewes