Our Prime Minster has announce a £23.6million investment to transform Truro into a thriving waterfront city. The investment will boost the economy, create jobs and transform Truro into a modern economic, and green capital.
That’s really good of him to do this but does Truro really need it and is it just a developers charter that price the city out of the range of Cornish people?
Boris Johnson said in speech “We are determined to level up across the entire country, and the Deal we’re announcing for Truro will help to unleash its tremendous potential” and “Through a range of innovative projects including greener transport links and the restoration and renewal of spaces in the city centre” and “The funding will also help to convert some of Truro’s unused buildings (what unused buildings? The post office?) into much-needed homes“
What does restoration and renewal of spaces in the city centre mean? More development? And what the hell does Boris know about Truro?
Our poor city seems to have become a bit soulless over the last twenty years but is that because of changing shopping and socialising habits or was Truro unfortunately a victim of that awful word gentrification?
The past is not a place to romanticise or regarded as golden time and we need to progress but we also need to learn from the past so let’s look at Truro from the eighties to the mid nineteen nineties.
Then Truro was quite successful,it was a Cornish city, it had a good range of independent shops, flats and bedsits were available and at affordable rents meaning not just Cornish people could afford to live there but a lot of talented younger people could also afford to live in the city which gave Truro a lot of musicians and artists and made it a creative place with a thriving social scene, there were always events or displays going on in the city . I am not saying for one moment that Truro was perfect it had many rough spots but it had a character, it felt unique and deservedly Cornwall’s capital.
Then came the housing boom and the bedsits disappeared as they were converted back to houses to be sold to take advantage of the spiraling housing prices, the rent on flats and houses went up and between two made Truro unaffordable to many Cornish people, to be replaced by people moving from other parts of the UK with little idea of the city’s history or traditions which robbed Truro of some of its creativity and culture, then the chain stores moved in and business rates went up and many of the independent shops went. And Truro felt more like a provincial town with identikit shops.
So the new plan for Truro if it happens and is not an election promise will change the city again for better or worse and everyone will have their own view on that, but if Truro is to have its empty buildings converted to housing them it cannot be housing that is claimed to be affordable with no actual mention of the price,if Truro is not to become a modern city in every sense of the word with no soul or character then the council needs to support the creation of shops and businesses that are locally owned and some of the new housing should be made available to people with connections to Truro or to younger people on an affordable rent or part ownership who can give Truro back some of the character is so desperately needs.
KernowCalling 