THE leader of Cornwall Council has admitted that the local authority’s purchase of a former pub for £1-million was a “cock-up”.

The council bought the former General Wolfe pub in St Austell, through its Corserv wing, for £1-m in 2020 to provide temporary housing, but it remained empty, deteriorating and a haven for antisocial behaviour in the ensuing years.

Cornwall Council said last summer that the projected costs of undertaking work to convert the historic building – which was Grade II listed in 1999 – had increased significantly, with estimates at more than £2.5-m.

The building was sold at a £725,000 loss at auction earlier this month.

At a council meeting last week, the local authority’s Liberal Democrat leader, Cllr Leigh Frost, was asked if he could reassure the public that such a controversial purchase would not be made again using taxpayers’ money.

Reform UK member for the St Austell Central and Gover division, Cllr Jack Yelland asked Cllr Frost: “At the most recent cabinet meeting in response to a public question, you stated that an investigation into the General Wolfe purchase was not required.

“As the councillor for central St Austell, this came as quite a surprise to me and I know an awful lot of people who would disagree with that stance.

“At cabinet you cited factors such as inflation, Covid and rapid deterioration as reasons for the £725,000 loss at auction. However, would you not accept that a more significant factor may have been the failure to carry out a full feasibility study before committing £1-m of taxpayer money contrary to professional advice that was provided at the time?

“Do you still maintain that no further investigation is needed and if so how can you reassure residents that losses of this scale would not be repeated without proper scrutiny?”

Cllr Frost replied: “The reality is if we do an investigation we won’t get a different answer. We know what happened, we know why it happened, we know how it happened. So reinvestigating something we already know is a waste of our time and money.

“You’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t because we can waste money going back over the same old ground and learning nothing, or we can look forward, accept that this one was a cock-up – that’s the way it is, these things happen – and we move forward and make sure it never happens again.

“We’ve learnt the lessons but doing another investigation into it will not bring a different result.”