ON THE ROCKS?

My favourite destination in the UK has long been Cornwall, but each time I go there I am acutely aware of intruding into a different world.   Of course, for the casual visitor in high summer, there is nothing better than to experience the dramatic and ever changing coastline, the varied landscape, the vast beaches and huge skies.

But there is a different side to all of this.   The winters can be long and when the grockels have gone home for another year, Cornwall and the Cornish can retreat into themselves once more.   There are also contrasts between the prosperous and the struggling and, seasonal tourism aside, Cornwall is one of the most economically deprived areas of the country.

So it needs all the economic and financial help it can get to sustain jobs for its own people.    Now, there are examples all over Cornwall of attempts continually being made, especially in these harsh financial times,  to create and sustain employment and one of those has recently centred around the regeneration scheme for Falmouth Docks (pictured above), a major source of employment in one of Cornwall`s largest towns.   The plans for the £160million scheme include dredging the Fal and Helford estuaries so that the depth of the port can be increased to accommodate larger ships using Falmouth Docks.   In the process, an additional 800 much needed jobs would be created for the struggling town.

But, the scheme has now been blocked by the European Union because a rare form of algae has been found growing on the rocks just off Falmouth Docks and this algae cannot be disturbed because the site is listed as a `Special Area of Conservation.`   The regeneration plans have been objected to by the Marine Management Organisation because of the EU Directive.

Well, I`m sorry but I suggest that the needs of the Cornish to create and sustain employment in one of the country`s most deprived areas should really take precedence over some dimwitted blobs of sludge.   They may be rare but I doubt they have the intelligence to worry too much about being shifted to some other marine venue where they can live happily ever after.

Never mind that the Cornish economy is itself on the rocks, as long as the unaccountable bureaucrats of the EU can have their politically correct, do-goody, myopic way so that the algae can stay on their own  rocks, then everything`s alright then.  Isn`t it?