‘Conversation’ needed into Spaceport Cornwall probe, says council leader
The new leader of Cornwall Council has questioned whether the local authority should carry out an inquiry into the recent spaceport scandal
The new leader of Cornwall Council has questioned whether the local authority should carry out an inquiry into the recent spaceport scandal. However, Cllr Leigh Frost says it’s a conversation the local authority definitely needs to have.
We reported this week that former Conservative Cabinet member for the economy Louis Gardner – who stood down as a councillor last month – has been found by the council to have been in breach of its code of conduct. Cornwall Council has referred one breach to Devon and Cornwall Police.
It came after the Newquay councillor failed to declare an interest during a meeting when £200,000 of government funding was allotted to Spaceport Cornwall. Two days before the meeting he had accepted a top job at the space facility, which is based at Newquay airport.
Concerns had previously been raised about how the former councillor, who had strong links with the spaceport due to his economic portfolio role, was employed in the head of future air and space role when he was far less qualified than many of the other candidates. He resigned from the position last month after Cornwall Council withdrew the £200k Shared Prosperity Fund allocation.
In recent weeks – before and after the May 1 council election – a number of former and current councillors have questioned whether there should be an inquiry into the matter. I asked the Lib Dem leader of Cornwall Council if his administration will be calling for an inquiry into the controversy.
Cllr Frost said: “It’s something we need to talk about; it is a conversation we need to have. Whether it needs to be a formal inquiry is another thing as obviously he’s Louis Gardner moved on now, which is the right thing for him to do. Half the problem is all the players that were involved in it have gone.
“The chief executive of Corserv came in just as it happened, the managing director at the airport has gone and Kate Kennally Cornwall Council’s chief executive as the shareholder found out only a couple of days before the rest of us. I remember contacting her about it at the time and she was blindsided like everyone else, in fairness to her.
“If we invest money into a full inquiry, are we going to get anything out of it? That’s the key thing, but we definitely need to have conversations about it at the very least.”
Concerning the future of the space hub itself, he added: “We need to look at the spaceport. When we did the airport inquiry we were told it is now in a profitable position, so if it’s wiping its own face there’s no reason for it not to continue. It may not be a spaceport as we envisaged it in the past because, obviously, there’s an issue with horizontal launches now. If we’ve got a high-tech sector where people invest and it’s making a return, then it can continue. If that changes, there are conversations to be had.”
What about the airport, where there was a failed bid by the last Tory administration to find a financial partner to run the estate?
“We all know how much benefit having an airport has to Cornwall – it’s £90 million of gross value added to the Cornish economy, which is amazing,” said Cllr Frost. “I’m not against developing the estate or a private investor coming in. What I do have an issue is with losing control as that’s premium land there that we’ve got. It won’t be a short-term project.”
A spokesperson for Cornwall Council said there’s no spaceport inquiry planned as a comprehensive investigation resulted in the council recognising that Mr Gardner breached five points of its code of conduct.