Devonwall

Don’t spend thousands fighting a legal battle that can’t be won

Conservatives urge Council not to continue with Devonwall legal challenge

The Conservative Group at Cornwall Council has always been opposed to the idea of the cross county Parliamentary boundary concept known as ‘Devonwall' and they remain firmly apposed to it.

However, legal advice that Cornwall Council has received from a QC is that a legal challenge is extremely unlikely to succeed as it has been an Act of Parliament since 2011. This decision was made five years ago by a coalition led Government, which at the time saw Cornwall represented in Parliament evenly by three Conservative MP’s and three Lib Dem’s.

In this instance the Conservative Group feels strongly that residents would prefer that public money were spent funding more essential services in Cornwall such as Adult Social Care, Road Maintenance and even Public Conveniences and not funding an expensive legal battle that ultimately only lawyers themselves will win.

Commenting on the issue the Conservative Group Leader, Cllr John Keeling, said: “This isn’t about whether we’re happy with the idea of Devonwall, it’s about whether we’re happy to continue spending public money on a legal battle that we as a council cannot win. We’ve already spent a significant amount of money getting Counsel Opinion so why would you go against that recommendation and start spending thousands more.”

A request by the Conservative Group for the meeting to be cancelled was overlooked by the administration. The result is that Tuesday’s extraordinary meeting scheduled for 10.30am in Truro will go ahead creating additional travel expense for all attending councillors as well as significant expenditure on more officer time.