WHAT has Camelford got to offer? That was the question posed to members of the Community Network Panel meeting last week, writes Suzanne Cleave.

Meeting in Camelford Hall on Tuesday, September 12, discussions moved from what hasn’t the area got to what it could offer to attract people and businesses, and funding.

Rob Rotchell, town mayor and the Ward member for Camelford, said that as well as longstanding calls for a bypass, more recently, there has been a problem in the town with air quality, having breached the maximum level of toxicity on a number of occasions.

He said: “There has to be a solution to that problem, but there is not a pot of money. There has to be another way of solving the problem of traffic flow in Camelford.”

Cllr Rotchell recently met with Conservative North Cornwall MP Scott Mann, during which the problem was discussed.

He said: “Scott Mann’s question to me was, what’s the deal then? What have you got to offer? There is money available for road schemes, but it’s about regeneration.”

He has also held discussions with Cllr Steve Double, who has fought to get money for St Austell. He advised Cllr Rotchell that before a town comes up with a plan, the question that should first be asked is why should people go there?

Cllr Rotchell added: “If Camelford wants money to solve the problem of traffic flow and air quality management, we’ve got to come up with a scheme to say why this is worth it. The assumption that most of the money has gone to Truro and the west is true. We’ve seen it in Bodmin, in Launceston, and Wadebridge but our little island has suffered from a lack of investment.”

Cllr Rotchell started to look at some of the selling points of Camelford: firstly, land price — it’s cheaper to set up business there than other towns; access — it is easy to get to the A30 and Newquay Airport; Neighbourhood Plan — this talks about parts of the town earmarked for commercial use; leisure — some of the best parts of Great Britain to live, with cycling, canoeing, sailing and surfing on the doorstep; Superfast Broadband — although nobody has the service, a significant chunk of the area has access to Superfast Broadband.

Addressing the meeting, he said: “What I’m suggesting to us is we need to develop a portfolio — this is what we’ve got to offer, this is what this network has available to you. If we don’t have that, we’re not going to attract money. We’ve got houses coming out of our ears but what we haven’t got is proper jobs, decent jobs with decent wages.”

Cllr Rotchell said he was happy to start the project rolling with some assistance, and said there was an idea that could be developed.

There would need to be some kind of indication of agreement from the town council and parish councils for time and information. Once gathered, the information can be collated and a portfolio produced.

He added: “That means that our communities become more sustainable in their own right. Scott Mann said we need to prove why people should invest. If we could encourage a few more businesses to establish themselves in the network that would make a huge difference.”

Community network officer, Sarah Sims said she would send a synopsis out to all the parish councils in the network, and would report back to a future meeting.