Having reread again, the West Cornwall Housing Requirements survey issued in April 2008 I have to ask ‘Where is the justification for all of these mass house building programmes from our Government?’

Very briefly points in this report include the following and are of great interest:

i. This report is a Costly and Comprehensive survey based on 5,000 interviews on behalf of Carrick, Kerrier, Penwith and Restormel and is therefore pretty accurate compared with others such as the Government’s  RSS ‘assumptions’.

ii. The RSS ‘s figures for housing were based on an ANNUAL ECONOMIC GROWTH of 2.8% per year over the next 20 years – and what is happening?

iii. Inward migration into Cornwall from London and the South East is 150,000 per year!! (110,000 outward – why?)

iv. Overall average earnings in Kerrier @ £17k (times 3.5 for a mortgage??- NO CHANCE - never mind this misleading affordable home con.)

v. 40% of the population in Kerrier have an income of less than £15k and therefore in ALL plans rented accommodation must include at least 40% of the plan. Is this what is happening? – No!

vi. 60% of the population requires 2 bed dwellings. Is this requirement in all of the current plans? -  NO.

vii. The total need for Camborne and Redruth IS FOR 1800 homes only!! NOT the 12,800 indicated by our Government.

viii. AND – The indigenous population of Kerrier is REDUCING!! This is what needs attention NOT just building more houses for people from outside Cornwall. These people are leaving because they cannot find employment or a reasonable ‘Council rented place to live!!’

Derek Elliott Parliamentary Candidate,  Camborne/Redruth

The current deliberations are excluding the fact that the National Insurance Contributions were intended to cover ‘cradle to grave’, unemployment, medical, and old age pensions. This was of course part of the brilliance of Clement Attlee’s act of 1946 the National Insurance Act, the brainchild of William Beveridge and finally brought forward by Nye Bevan.

Of course many things have occurred to thwart the intentions of the architects, not least the longevity of the population and the costs associated with it. None the less, for politicians now to be talking of more taxation is beyond the pale.

What is obviously required is that the welfare state must be made ‘fit for purpose’, no longer must we accept the so called “welfare tourism”, whereby all and sundry are permitted to use the resources of our National Health Service free and gratis. The NHS is under extreme financial pressure and quite apart from cutting out the waste and lack of control, more must be done to ensure that facilities are available to those who have paid throughout their lives.

When visiting the USA some while ago I was taken ill and the first question asked was ‘was I insured?’, had I not have had an insurance policy I would have been expected to pay. This is imperative if we are to rescue the facilities we all thought were to be available to us. Any visitor to our land must be expected to pay for services rendered, either by an insurance policy or by personal payment.

Incidentally this policy must also be applied to Road Fund licensing. For enormous foreign juggernauts to roam through our streets with no evidence of payment for the privilege is ridiculous.

Barrie Draper

Axminster

FT Deutschland reports that the European Commissioner for Taxation, Algirdas Semeta, will propose plans in April for a European Union-wide CO2 tax.

They will apparently include a revision of existing EU minimum rates of consumer taxes on fuel oil, gas and electricity.

On top of that, a harmonised EU-wide CO2 tax would be introduced from 2013 onwards.

The article adds that "the plans will not just serve as climate measures but would, in the longer term, also serve to fund the EU budget directly".

So now we know what it's all about!

Graham Booth

Paignton

This letter was published in The Western Morning News today

Sir,

The Government may have ordered councils to find £550 million in savings from waste disposal. The true reason for this order is the EU Landfill Directive 99/31/EC of April 1999.

Harry M. Randall
Cerne Abbas, Dorset