Economic Impact of Covid on Cornwall

We had a member briefing on the economic impact of Covid and the potential recovery on Friday. The most startling facts were that there were 24,876 Universal Credit claimants in Cornwall in March and that had risen to approx. 47,500 in May. The number of people claiming UC has doubled in St Ives in 2 months. The estimated potential job losses as a result of Covid in Cornwall are 72,800. Over half are in the retail, accommodation and food sectors. Approximately 60,900 people are furloughed in the county, with 24,800 of them likely to work in accommodation and food. Newquay has 56% of its workforce employed in the shut-down sectors. That’s half the town not working. Non-grocery sales in Penzance have dropped by 89%.. The worry is that as the furlough scheme is withdrawn, many more people will be made redundant.

We had the Cabinet meeting virtually on Wednesday which was a more wooden experience than a normal meeting. However, many more members of the public and councillors were able to attend, so it has widened participation. I gave a brief summary of the Covid report on the agenda in last week’s briefing. I was able to raise some questions on behalf of the Labour Group in Cabinet and asked:

1. If the Cornwall Leadership Board is to be making Covid recovery plans and decisions for Cornwall as implied in the Cabinet Papers, how can we be assured that all residents will be represented as the current Leadership Board has a very different political make up to the Council (no Labour members), & how will those decisions be challenged & scrutinised?
   - I was told that the Leadership Board will not make decisions for Cornwall’s organisations.
2. I put a question on behalf of Cllr Olivier about a review of the Cornish schools’ curriculum and a potential conference to take BLM concerns into account.
   - The cabinet member agreed with Cllr Olivier that this was important and a conference had been planned for April to discuss BAME issues and teaching in Cornish schools. BAME students had been asked to relay their experience of attending school in Cornwall. This conference had had to be rescheduled due to Covid. Curriculum officers have also been appointed to look at school improvement.
3. I asked how many of the houses provided via Cornwall Council last year were council housing or other housing at social rent. And was this a net increase or decrease after considering homes lost to right to buy etc?
   Ans - a written answer with exact detail will be provided, but 40 from the cabinet member’s memory.

Providing Council housing is an area of dire need in Cornwall where CC has been a very slow starter & needs to move a lot faster. The ambition for next year is 250 council houses to be built or provided, rising to 500 the next year, according to the Cabinet Member for Homes.

There are coronavirus mobile testing centres at Falmouth Rugby Club between 10.30am – 4pm and St Austell Information Service between 10.30am – 3.30pm. To book a test use:
https://www.gov.uk/apply-coronavirus-test

Jayne Kirkham – Cornwall Councillor for Falmouth Smithick
Jayne.kirkham@cornwallcouncillors.org.uk