All Invited to Campaign Launch

A MK Councillor is appealing for people to join his campaign to uncover what he is calling the lies of housing development that he says the government are telling the people of Cornwall.

In a letter to residents, Councillor Stephen Richardson is asking people to attend a public meeting later this month, where he will launch a campaign that he aims will expose the "lies" that he says are a "travesty" for local people. Councillor Richardson, who represents Illogan ward, said in his letter that Westminster politicians are "cynically misleading us" and are creating "profits for developers on the back of houses which local people can’t even begin to hope to afford to buy."
Cllr. Richardson, who is a Redruth businessman, admits that to try to change the government’s position would be a huge undertaking, but says that he can no longer stand back and do nothing, adding:

"All Westminster politicians use terms such as ‘Localism’ and ‘Affordable Housing’ in order to appear as if they know and understand the problems that we face in Cornwall. The truth is that when you look closely at the small print and official definitions of these terms they are actually ways of encouraging development. They are not ways of giving people real choices or help them to find a decent home for their family.

"Mebyon Kernow - the Party for Cornwall is the only political party that provides a genuinely different housing policy for the people of Cornwall. We believe that good quality housing is a basic human need rather than purely a device for making money."

The public meeting will be held at The Meeting Room, Melting Pot Café, Krowji, Redruth on Wednesday 14th December 2012 at 7:00pm and all are welcome.
Contact starichardson@btinternet.com for further information.

Councillor Wishes Residents Happy Christmas With Card

This Christmas, Councillor’s will be out delivering a personal message of good cheer to their constituents by hand delivering Christmas cards to over 6000 homes in Camborne and Illogan.

In a tradition that stretches back almost a decade Mebyon Kernow Councillors have been delivering Christmas cards to wish residents a Merry Christmas and to say thank you for their continued support. Councillor Stuart Cullimore, who started the local tradition in 2003, said:

''We like to deliver our Christmas cards to the people in our wards to share a bit of Christmas with them and to repay, in a small way, the faith they have placed in us as their elected representatives."

Cllr. Cullimore added that by delivering the cards by hand, councillors get a further chance to meet up with people personally to say hello, at what can be a lonely time for many:

"I think it is also a good time to meet the residents of my ward and wish them a merry Christmas personally I like to think that all the members of the community know me personally, people seem to like our cards I even know people who have kept all the ones we have done over the years."

The design for this year’s card has been contributed by local artist Paul Jenkin and the Christmas message is in the Cornish and English languages. Some of the cost of the Christmas cards is covered by contributions from MK members, but the majority of the cost is met by the councillors themselves.

Contact stuart.cullimore@hotmail.co.uk for more information.

Loveday Wins Seat for MK!

The Camborne and Redruth Branch will be celebrating this weekend after voters elected their third Cornwall Councillor in the parliamentary constituency.

Dr Loveday Jenkin was elected yesterday with over 36% of the vote in a by-election for Wendron following the sudden death of Independent Councillor Mike Clayton. In her post on Facebook following the announcement of the results late last night Cllr Jenkin said:

"Now the hard work starts! Who's standing for MK in the next by-election?"

Originally from Leedstown, Cllr Jenkin knows the ward intimately and was the obvious choice for Councillor. MK is the party that people are increasingly turning towards, as the only party that works for the people by the people and able to put Cornwall first.

The results of the election were:

MK 36.4%
L Dem 22.3%
C 19.4%
Ind 15.1%
Lab 6.8%

MK – A Party of Difference, A Party of Principle

Trips to conferences in Scotland and Brussels, organising the Mebyon Kernow sixtieth anniversary conference and a Cornwall Council by election are just some of the eclectic mix of activities that members of the branch have been up to over the past couple of months.

Members have also been busy out talking to residents and working to meet their needs in the way that only MK councillors can seem to do properly. It seems more and more people are putting their support firmly behind MK as the message reaches out to the young and old alike that it is the only political party that is based in Cornwall and works for the good of the people of Cornwall. People are realising that MK has nothing to hide and that it is a different kind of political party, because it is a party of principle.

In this video MK Party Leader Cllr. Dick Cole sets out a brief history of the party over the last 60 years and the Cornish people who have made the party what it is today. As Cllr. Cole says in his speech:

"We join MK – people like you and I – because we are passionate about Cornwall and we are passionate about doing what is right for Cornwall and that is what matters."

MK truly is the only choice for the people of Cornwall.

True Tales of Redruth

A book will be launched later this month containing stories that local people from Redruth have contributed as part of a community project.
‘True Tales of Redruth’ will launch on 24th October 2011 and is part of a wider a wider centennial celebration to celebrate the life and work of Philanthropist John Passmore Edwards (1823-1911). The book will be sold at different venues around the town, including:

The Melting Pot
Shimmys
Hands on Craft and Mysterious Lady
Oxford Inn
The Emporium
GR8 Cafe
Market Way Cafe
Curio City
Studiofourseven
Bond Street Opticians
Arts and Graphics
Country Store Health
Greens Newsagents
Chiropractor
Boesti
Library
Cornwall Centre
Redruth Town Council

Member Writes to Prime Minister about Poverty

A member of the Branch has written to the Prime Minister on behalf of his daughter, about the high levels of poverty in the Camborne, Pool and Redruth area.

The letter is written in a private capacity by Rhisiart Tal-e-bot, who hi
ghlights the depravation that can be found in Camborne, Pool and Redruth area and challenges Prime Minister David Cameron to explain to his four year old daughter that these issues will take more than simple donations of food to be resolved.

In the expectation that little will be done to alleviate the poverty in the area by the current government, collection points for donations of food can be made at Tesco in Redruth, Camborne and Pool and all 17 Methodist Chapels in the Camborne-Redruth Circuit, Camborne Parish Church, in addition to several other places in the area. The full text of the letter can be found below.

David Cameron MP
Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA
21.08.11

Dear Prime Minister David Cameron

Poverty and Deprivation in Redruth and Camborne

I am writing this on behalf of my four year old daughter who is sitting next to me who is concerned about the high level of food poverty that is apparent in our community.

On the front cover of the last two editions of the Camborne and Redruth West Briton newspaper, a story has run about the poverty that exists in the area of Cornwall where we live. On reading the article to my wife and discussing the issues involved in front of our four year old daughter, she was eager for the article to be explained to her, because one of the featured stories involved a mum-to-be who had to visit a local food bank with her partner due to a severe lack of food. The article went on to say that the food bank was in such high demand recently that it was running very low on stock and could not remain open if further donations of food were not made by the public. My daughter understands to an extent that it is important to eat properly when pregnant, but she could not understand that the couple did not have enough to eat.

My daughter said that the story made her feel sad and she asked if we could do anything. We explained that we could take food to the food bank (which we subsequently did), but that the problems were much greater than that and could not be solved with simple donations of food. I am an active campaigner, involved in local politics, undertake a great deal of charity work and work in a college of further education in the area and I am all too aware of the poverty and deprivation that exists here.

In June 2011 a report announced that in one of the estates near where we live, childhood poverty affects 66% of households and in Cornwall as a whole 1 in 5 children under 16 years of age lives in poverty. These figures are distressing and a far cry from the Cornwall that wealthy tourists often like to visit like Rock and St Mawes. In the Redruth and Camborne areas of Cornwall we rarely see tourists and poverty is tangible. (Many people here cannot afford to take one holiday a year, let alone five of them).

When a further front page newspaper article in the West Britain came out this week showing two of the food bank volunteers smiling and surrounded by food that had been donated by people in the area - who had also been clearly effected by the news item - my daughter was under the impression that the problem had been solved. It was then that I decided to write to you in the hope that you could give her a better understanding of the depth of these issues by putting them into context and showing her that the gap between rich and poor is insurmountable and growing in our current political and economic climate and that if she would like to do anything about the situation in the future a complete system overhaul is necessary.

I wish you luck with the challenge that I have set, but then again I do not expect much hope of you ever acknowledging this letter, let alone responding to it. Even though I am writing this in a private capacity I do nevertheless intend to make the letter public for the sole purpose that some level of shame can be brought to bear on anyone who could possibly deny that these are pressing problems and do not need to be tackled as a matter of priority.

Yours sincerely

Rhisiart Tal-e-bot
(On behalf of Owen Champliaud Tal-e-bot)

CC Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg MP

Contact Rhisiart Tal-e-bot for follow up comment on this issue at the one of the contact below:

Email: Rhisiart.talebot@gmail.com
Tel: M: 0044(0)7787318666

Councillor Travels to Poland to Attend Conference

A Redruth councillor will leave Cornwall this weekend (4th September 2011) to attend a weeklong conference in Poland.

Cllr. John Rowe, who represents Mebyon Kernow (MK) on Carn Brea Council, was selected to take part in the conference by the European Youth Forum, which is Europe’s largest youth organisation. Cllr. Rowe, who is 26 years of age, is MK’s youth coordinator and an active member of the Camborne and Redruth Branch. The European conference will receive delegates from most European states and will aim to foster better cooperation between young people, between west and east Europe in particular.

Speaking to members of the executive committee of the Branch, Cllr. Rowe said that by attending the conference he hoped to meet with representatives from some of the eastern European countries whose young people have moved to Cornwall for work. Cllr. Rowe said:

"Coming from a farming family in Barriper I have regularly come into contact with different people’s from eastern Europe and I would like to gain a better understanding of the situation in these countries. Traditionally young people from Cornwall have left to travel to many countries throughout the world to look for work and this is still happening to an extent and this has created a brain drain effect. I hope to learn more from the shared dialogue about how social mobility has changed things in these other countries too."

Cllr. John Rowe can be contacted below:

Email: jpr2016@yahoo.co.uk
Phone: 01209 719645