This is Plymouth -- ON A beach near Plymouth last autumn I fell into conversation with a local sea captain who was clambering over the rocks with his family. The sea captain owns a vessel which he uses to supply and service offshore energy operations. "Hayle?" I asked. "Or Falmouth?" Both are heavily touted centres for testing and developing devices to capture wave and tidal energy. He shook his head sadly: "Scotland. There's very little happening in Cornwall." FabTest, the test site off Falmouth Bay, and its big brother Wave Hub, the world's largest grid-connected wave energy demonstrator, near Hayle in North Cornwall, should put the county at the heart of the industry. Wave Hub alone cost some £42million when it was set up in 2010. In 2011 the EU pumped another £4million into marine renewable energy in a project called MERIFIC, which targeted the peripheral and island communities of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly and Brittany. In 2012 the UK's first marine energy "park" was created in the South West. We were promised that the "virtual" Marine Energy Park, spread across sites in Plymouth, Devon, Cornwall and Bristol, would – or could – fuel a ten-fold growth in marine industry jobs in five years. At the end of 2012 Plymouth University opened its £19million Marine Building, housing a state-of -the-art wave tank, among other gee-whiz technology. The latest step is the new Plymouth and South West Peninsula City Deal. The deal, signed last week and reported extensively in The Herald, paves the way for Devonport's South Yard to become a marine industries production campus. The hope is that £9million of Government and MoD cash will prime the pump for £296million of private sector cash to be pumped into the region over the next 15 years. There is a public impatience with civic stuff, which seems to move painfully slowly in this age of instant gratification. But you have to feel that it's time for this sector to start punching at its weight. The taxpayer has stumped up enough and it's time for the private sector to earn its keep. WHILE walking to The Herald's offices in Millbay this week I encountered a woman with a small boy who was excited by the nearby construction site at Plymouth School of Creative Arts. Avoiding the excitable child forced me to take my eye off the ground for a moment. The next step went straight into a pile of fresh dog mess in the middle of the pavement. It is possible that Looe's harbourmaster Jeff Penhaligon has fallen victim to a similar disgusting indignity. Mr Penhaligon has taken to displaying images of dog-poo offenders caught on CCTV. The resort has taken the drastic step after it became fed up with dogs fouling its picturesque harbourside. One owner has been fined already, as a result of the CCTV images. Plymouth city centre is covered by banks of cameras. In this time of austerity, when the council can barely afford to wash its own face never mind clean pavements, a similar measure would get my support. Visit this column online to vote in our poll on the subject. WE HAVE heard this week that Plymstock motorists face six weeks of gridlock as utility companies lay on services to the Saltram Meadow development at the former Plymstock Quarry. Six weeks is just the start of it. Work on the new town at Sherford, due to start this year, will add 5,500 homes to the 1,600 proposed for Saltram Meadow. In the longer term the city is budgeting for another 5,000 homes in Derriford and Seaton, with 800-odd already through the planning stage. Meanwhile, fire chiefs are slashing and burning in a bid to cut their budget. Three out of Plymouth's seven pumps will lose full-time crews. They will be operated by on-call retained firemen instead. The aerial platform at Crownhill will in future be crewed by on-call, not permanent, firefighters. Plympton and Plymstock fire stations will have no full-time crews, under plans drawn up by Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service. Let's hope Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Authority's chief officer, Lee Howell, has done his homework? DURING a budget scrutiny meeting Cllr Tudor Evans put his political career on the line when he dissed Pothole Pete. "I've got a revelation to make for the local newspaper (I guess he meant The Herald)," he said. "It weren't Pothole Pete that done it. It was actually the voices of the local community saying they were fed up." And who was the gallant gent who came to hear their troubles every time? None other than Pothole Pete. JOHNNY MERCER, Conservative parliamentary candidate for the Plymouth Moor View constituency, has taken a pummelling in the past week. The political class has ganged up on the ex-soldier turned politician over his pledge to ballot voters on key votes in Parliament, as reported on this page a week ago. I'm all for the idea of extending real democracy to the man and woman in the street. According to a poll organised by Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative MP for Richmond Park and North Kingston, so are 72per cent the public. But it's a notion that puts noses out of joint among the occupants of those venerable green benches in Parliament. Expect a vicious backlash against Mr Mercer any time now. Our system makes it almost impossible to be elected to Parliament without the support of a big political party. If the Conservatives pull the rug out from under Mr Mercer, that will put paid to him and his big idea.
Reported by This is 17 hours ago.
This is Plymouth -- ON A beach near Plymouth last autumn I fell into conversation with a local sea captain who was clambering over the rocks with his family. The sea captain owns a vessel which he uses to supply and service offshore energy operations. "Hayle?" I asked. "Or Falmouth?" Both are heavily touted centres for testing and developing devices to capture wave and tidal energy. He shook his head sadly: "Scotland. There's very little happening in Cornwall." FabTest, the test site off Falmouth Bay, and its big brother Wave Hub, the world's largest grid-connected wave energy demonstrator, near Hayle in North Cornwall, should put the county at the heart of the industry. Wave Hub alone cost some £42million when it was set up in 2010. In 2011 the EU pumped another £4million into marine renewable energy in a project called MERIFIC, which targeted the peripheral and island communities of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly and Brittany. In 2012 the UK's first marine energy "park" was created in the South West. We were promised that the "virtual" Marine Energy Park, spread across sites in Plymouth, Devon, Cornwall and Bristol, would – or could – fuel a ten-fold growth in marine industry jobs in five years. At the end of 2012 Plymouth University opened its £19million Marine Building, housing a state-of -the-art wave tank, among other gee-whiz technology. The latest step is the new Plymouth and South West Peninsula City Deal. The deal, signed last week and reported extensively in The Herald, paves the way for Devonport's South Yard to become a marine industries production campus. The hope is that £9million of Government and MoD cash will prime the pump for £296million of private sector cash to be pumped into the region over the next 15 years. There is a public impatience with civic stuff, which seems to move painfully slowly in this age of instant gratification. But you have to feel that it's time for this sector to start punching at its weight. The taxpayer has stumped up enough and it's time for the private sector to earn its keep. WHILE walking to The Herald's offices in Millbay this week I encountered a woman with a small boy who was excited by the nearby construction site at Plymouth School of Creative Arts. Avoiding the excitable child forced me to take my eye off the ground for a moment. The next step went straight into a pile of fresh dog mess in the middle of the pavement. It is possible that Looe's harbourmaster Jeff Penhaligon has fallen victim to a similar disgusting indignity. Mr Penhaligon has taken to displaying images of dog-poo offenders caught on CCTV. The resort has taken the drastic step after it became fed up with dogs fouling its picturesque harbourside. One owner has been fined already, as a result of the CCTV images. Plymouth city centre is covered by banks of cameras. In this time of austerity, when the council can barely afford to wash its own face never mind clean pavements, a similar measure would get my support. Visit this column online to vote in our poll on the subject. WE HAVE heard this week that Plymstock motorists face six weeks of gridlock as utility companies lay on services to the Saltram Meadow development at the former Plymstock Quarry. Six weeks is just the start of it. Work on the new town at Sherford, due to start this year, will add 5,500 homes to the 1,600 proposed for Saltram Meadow. In the longer term the city is budgeting for another 5,000 homes in Derriford and Seaton, with 800-odd already through the planning stage. Meanwhile, fire chiefs are slashing and burning in a bid to cut their budget. Three out of Plymouth's seven pumps will lose full-time crews. They will be operated by on-call retained firemen instead. The aerial platform at Crownhill will in future be crewed by on-call, not permanent, firefighters. Plympton and Plymstock fire stations will have no full-time crews, under plans drawn up by Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service. Let's hope Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Authority's chief officer, Lee Howell, has done his homework? DURING a budget scrutiny meeting Cllr Tudor Evans put his political career on the line when he dissed Pothole Pete. "I've got a revelation to make for the local newspaper (I guess he meant The Herald)," he said. "It weren't Pothole Pete that done it. It was actually the voices of the local community saying they were fed up." And who was the gallant gent who came to hear their troubles every time? None other than Pothole Pete. JOHNNY MERCER, Conservative parliamentary candidate for the Plymouth Moor View constituency, has taken a pummelling in the past week. The political class has ganged up on the ex-soldier turned politician over his pledge to ballot voters on key votes in Parliament, as reported on this page a week ago. I'm all for the idea of extending real democracy to the man and woman in the street. According to a poll organised by Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative MP for Richmond Park and North Kingston, so are 72per cent the public. But it's a notion that puts noses out of joint among the occupants of those venerable green benches in Parliament. Expect a vicious backlash against Mr Mercer any time now. Our system makes it almost impossible to be elected to Parliament without the support of a big political party. If the Conservatives pull the rug out from under Mr Mercer, that will put paid to him and his big idea.
Reported by This is 17 hours ago.