CAMELFORD Town Council recently considered the proposed ‘Devonwall’ parliamentary boundary changes for North Cornwall.

The proposed parliamentary boundary changes would see Bude, Bideford and Launceston all fall under the same boundary, an idea which has sparked a furious backlash from many in Cornwall and North Devon.

In a statement issued by Camelford town clerk, Lee Dunkley, the council was firm in its insistence that ‘Devonwall’ is not an idea that should be pursued, particularly citing its lack of commonality with Bideford, which is 41 miles away, takes an hour and a quarter to get to and has no direct public transport links, the culture, history and Cornish minority status.

Camelford Town Council said: “The council oppose reconfiguration of boundaries and wish to stay part of a constituency, which is entirely within Cornwall as there are special grounds for the boundary commissions to consider, including unique culture, history, and Cornish minority status.”

Besides that, it believes the crossover of constituencies within Devon and Cornwall would create plenty of headaches for whoever would be elected as MP.

The council added: “The constituency MP would have to deal with multiple agencies such as Cornwall Council, Devon County Council, district councils and several large town councils at various stages of devolution, making the role untenable.”

However, it seems the council’s biggest gripe would be having to deal with Bideford, a place the council said Camelford has no emotional or work related ties with.

The council added: “Camelford shares no commonality with Bideford in terms of culture, history, traditional links or geography and that Bideford, as the largest town in the proposed constituency, is so far away from our town.

“These factors combine to make the proposed new constituency of ‘Bideford, Bude and Launceston’ unworkable, not sensitive to local culture and heritage, and illogical from the perspective of the electorate in Camelford. The town council urge that special consideration is given to retain Cornwall as a whole Celtic nation and reject the ‘Devonwall’ notion.”

Camelford Town mayor, Rob Rotchell, said: “ As a town we are quite unequivocal that Devonwall is something that we don’t want or need, so we think it’s entirely inappropriate.

“We have nothing in common with Bideford and we think it’s entirely inappropriate.

“As a town council we always seem to be low on everyone’s priorities and if the Devonwall proposals did happen we’d probably become even more so, so we want it to stay as it is.”

Members of the public are invited to respond direct to the Boundary Commission on the following link by December 5: www.bce2018.org.uk/

l THERE are less than two weeks left for you to get involved before the Boundary Commission for England’s consultation on parliamentary constit­uency boundaries closes on Monday, December 5.

In September, BCE published initial proposals showing what the new boundaries might look like and since then have been asking the public to tell them what they think about them.

This has included holding public hearings across the country.

Secretary to the Boundary Commission for England, Sam Hartley, said: “We’re really happy with the response to the consultation so far and know the comments will continue to come in right up until December 5. The public are the experts when it comes to local knowledge, so hearing what you do or don’t like about our proposals as well as why and what we can do to make them better is so important to us.

“Our initial proposals are just a starting point and people’s comments do make a difference — at the last review the commission changed almost two-thirds of the initial proposals based on what the public said.”

Visit ?www.bce2018.org.uk to have your say before December 5.