IT has been another busy month. I referred the planning application for a solar farm in the Trerice part of the St Dennis parish to the strategic planning committee. In advance of the planning meeting, the parish council and I sought the views of households closest to the proposal site through a letter drop.

The chair of the parish council, Julia Clark, and I represented the views of local people. In particular, I spoke about the significant amount of renewable energy that had already been installed, or was presently being built, across my St Dennis and St Enoder division, and raised concerns about the increased industrialisation of the area.

The application was rejected by five votes to four with one abstention. I understand the applicants are planning to lodge an appeal with central government’s Planning Inspectorate.

Cornish Lithium have submitted a scoping report to the Planning Inspectorate for their mining project at Trelavour and have been holding a non-statutory consultation at a number of local venues. I have attended a number of these.

The company wishes to remove the two skytips on the downs (Pointy and Flatty) in order to make their excavation area larger and to make their project more viable.

They wish to dump waste materials in pits near Treviscoe and bring forward a multi-use trail along the old railway line that could link St Dennis to the Goss Moor National Nature Reserve. It has also been suggested that the access road to their proposed processing plant at Trelavour could be extended to help take heavy goods vehicles out of St Dennis village.

I am also pleased that councillors on the unitary authority backed a motion from me, which reaffirmed our commitment to meaningful devolution for Cornwall. The vote was 53 votes to 22. It was supported by all Conservative, Green, Lib-Dem, Labour and Mebyon Kernow councillors, all independent councillors (bar one) and two Reform members. It was disappointing, nonetheless, to see the majority of Reform councillors opposing more powers for Cornwall.

If I can be of assistance to anyone, please feel free to get in contact with me: [email protected] or 07791 876607.