CORNWALL Council’s cabinet has again voted to go ahead with a controversial bid for Truro to be the European Capital of Culture in 2023.

It has agreed to lead a partnership big for the award, and cabinet heard the costs of going ahead with the first phase of the bid would be £336,000, with potential economic benefits to Cornwall of up to £769,000. The council said the Cornish economy could be boosted by up to £100-million.

The Post previously reported that the cabinet in January agreed to support this bid, and at the time the local authority’s deputy leader, Liberal Democrat Adam Paynter, said he hoped the bid would ‘affect Launceston positively’.

However, the cabinet’s decision was ‘called-in’, and the council’s scrutiny management decision last month decided that cabinet should discuss it again.

Neil Burden, Cornwall Councillor for Stoke Climsland, who chairs the council’s scrutiny management committee, said a ‘lack’ of consultation on the bid led to cabinet’s decision being called in.

He added of the scrutiny meeting: “There was a two and a half hour debate, much more information was shared about the costs, others bidding, however, the reasons for the call in had to be accepted and by a cross party vote were supported by 5/4 on the casting vote of myself as the scrutiny chairman for this decision to be referred back for deeper debate where those not in the cabinet could make their representations

“The call in is a means to just make those in the cabinet to think carefully with the powers vested in them and the need for open transparency when big policy decisions are made.

“When making bids of this sort it is essential that all the partners are involved and that it is supported across the whole community; no bid gets through without the widest consultation and support — this is where the present cabinet have been somewhat naive in assuming that everyone was already engaged.

“Even when Truro was named in the bid presented to cabinet Truro City Council had not even been consulted. Truro City Council have now received a formal apology.”

Since the scrutiny meeting, and ahead of cabinet’s final decision, Truro’s city councillors elected to back the bid by one vote.

The council said launch plans and programme concepts will be unveiled in the near future, and the Cornwall bid will be submitted by late October.