An on-line petition has been launched opposing Cornwall's County Council's bid to become a unitary authority and calling for a Cornish Assembly instead.

The petition was started by a Mebyon Kernow – the Party for Cornwall (MK) Councillor and is part of a MK campaign to oppose the plans.

If the County Council application is successful Cornwall will be turned into a single council at the expense of the Districts. In recent weeks 4 out of 6 of Cornwall's District Councils have distributed leaflets among thousands of households condemning the County Council's plan.

However, the Liberal Democrat led Council has reacted strongly against the District Council criticism has accused them of spreading inaccurate and misleading information to the public about what unitary authority status would involve.

The District Councils commissioned an independent report by Professor Chisholm, to investigate the claims being made by the County Council and found that the financial gain by scrapping Cornwall's District Councils would not be as great as the County Council and the Government says. In addition the proposal to replace the District Council's with 16 Community Networks would limit and reduce the power and influence of local communities and more decisions will be made by a small group of Councillors in the County Council in Truro.

At MK's 2006 General Assembly in Bodmin, Plaid Cymru President, Dafydd Iwan, who was invited as the guest speaker warned against Cornwall becoming a unitary authority. Mr Iwan said that if Cornwall became a unitary authority it would be very difficult to backtrack and that a Cornish Assembly is the only feasible alternative.

A previous petition, signed by over 50 000 people calling for a Cornish Assembly, was handed into Downing Street on 12 th December 2001 and supported by all of Cornwall's Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament. This petition was launched by MK and later adopted by the Cornish Constitutional Convention and was started in response to the Government's call that if a significant percentage of the population want an Assembly then a referendum would be called. Over 10% of the Cornish electorate signed the petition and was a figure above the minimum requirement set down by the Government at the time. However since the petition was handed in to the Prime Minister no news about how it was received has been forthcoming, despite various attempts under the Freedom of Information Act to find out. After repeated attempts by campaigners the Government standard response has been that:

"The application of the public interest balance in relation to this exemption is particularly complex. The public interest both in disclosure of some information and in the withholding of other information lies in what might broadly described as good government"!

Speaking in support of the e-petition, MK Party Leader Cllr Dick Cole said:

"This petition gives people the opportunity to demonstrate that they do not wish to see the centralisation of local decision-making power onto a single site at Truro . But at the same time, it shows clearly that we remain in favour of worthwhile democratic reforms. It calls for the devolution of significant powers to a Cornish Assembly, with decisions still taken at as local a level as possible by local councils."

The e-petition can be found at: (voir le site)

It reads as follows:

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to (1) reject Cornwall Council's bid for unitary status; (2) affirm his support for the principle that political power should be exercised by democratically elected representatives at the most local competent level of government; and (3) introduce legislation to replace Cornwall County Council with a Cornish Assembly, which shall exercise (i) such residual powers as may not be devolved beneficially to lower tiers of government, and (ii) additional strategic powers devolved from central government, including those currently exercised by the South West Regional Assembly and other unelected quangos."

The Government will make a final decision on Cornwall's application for unitary status in July 2007 and if successful a new single Council for Cornwall will be installed in 2009.

Judging from the consequences that the petition for a Cornish Assembly had, it seems unlikely that a further petition will bring the desired results when engaging in British politics. Cornwall's County Council are asking people to send in their views on what the future English administrative status for Cornwall should be, before 12th June 2007.

J B Moffatt Director of Information Celtic League

10/06/07

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