In a recent national survey, Cornwall was voted the second best county in Britain for food, narrowly missing out on the top spot thanks to a last-minute surge in votes from Lincolnshire.

It’s fair to say that food lovers in Cornwall weren’t too happy with this, but I would argue that the actual result of the poll isn’t really too important.

Even coming second shows the rest of the country how proud we are of our local Cornish produce, and the ‘Love Cornish Food’ campaign launched by Cornwall Food & Drink did a great job of showing people that it’s not just about pasties and cream teas.

The Cornish food love is definitely spreading, and I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of it through the work of two of our clients – last month White River Place launched a brand new food festival for St Austell, bringing top quality local produce to a whole new audience, and last week the Carbis Bay Hotel was honoured to host the Cornwall Life Food and Drink Awards.

The awards were a fantastic celebration of everything that’s good about food and drink in Cornwall – not just the produce, but skilled chefs, independent food shops, thriving farmers markets and most importantly the passion of everyone involved in the industry.

One of the best things about the awards is that they are voted for by the readers of Cornwall Life, so you know that every single winner comes highly recommended and is very deserving of their award.

As if the awards weren’t proof enough, the quality of Cornish food was showcased by a delicious five-course lunch served to us by talented team in the kitchen at Carbis Bay – making it a true celebration of the best Cornwall has to offer.

Lincolnshire may have come out on top in the Love British Food campaign this year, but based on what I’ve seen recently I’m pretty certain Cornwall will be coming back fighting…

Posted by Natalie - @natblachford

(Disclaimer – these are my views, and possibly not the views of the non-Cornish members of the DCA team!)

So that’s it – the Localism Act, which will bring about a seismic shift in the planning system in England and Wales, is out of the traps having received Royal Assent this week.

Billed by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles as the “biggest transfer of power in a generation”, many of its provisions come into force immediately. Localism is a reality.

For local communities it gives them considerable powers to influence their built environment through neighbourhood development orders, neighbourhood development plans and community right to buy orders.

For developers it’s a great opportunity to play a positive enabling role by working hand in glove with communities to help them realise their aspirations.

Neighbourhood planning will allow residents, employees and business to come together through a local parish council or neighbourhood forum and say where they think new houses, businesses and shops should go – and what they should look like.

And that in turn creates great opportunities for developers and business to engage with local communities at an early stage because neighbourhood planning means just that – communities will be able to grant full or outline planning permission themselves, within of course a broader planning policy framework.

The Government has said planning authorities will be required to provide technical advice and support as neighbourhoods draw up their proposals, but the reality is that it will be quite an onerous process, including the need for a local referendum for neighbourhood plans and orders.

That’s another opportunity for developers to play an important enabling or even sponsorship role, but early community engagement will be crucial, as will professional communications.

The Act also places a new statutory responsibility on developers to carry out pre-application consultation for certain developments. That includes publicising the proposed application to the majority of people living nearby. And local planners are being encouraged to agree consultation plans with applicants in advance, so preparation is everything.

Once developers have completed their consultation they will have to demonstrate how they have carried out their statutory responsibility to consult, what the feedback from the process has been, and how they have responded.

From our experience of advising and delivering communications strategies and producing statements of community involvement for developers, the Localism Act merely reinforces what many have regarded as best practice for years.

Since the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 there has been a greater onus on developers to carry out pre-application consultation to try and achieve consensus. The Act reinforces this.

Another effect of the Act is to unfetter local members from commenting on planning applications, irrespective of committee membership. Before now councillors were bound by so-called ‘predetermination’ rules to ensure that they came to council discussions with an open mind. The Act does away with this, making it clear that ‘it is proper for councillors to play an active part in local discussions, and that they should not be liable to legal challenge as a result’.

Developers should be mindful of the new opportunity this gives elected members to speak their mind on local issues, without fear of being accused of bias or losing their committee vote. This is designed to ‘enrich democratic debate’. In practice that means a more politically charged atmosphere when applications are determined.

Localism is here, and with it new rules of engagement. Ignore them at your peril.

•    If you have a community consultation requirement then contact us here at DCA. For a plain English guide to the Localism Act click here

Posted by @DCAJason

This morning, Thursday 10 November 2011, I found myself feeling thoroughly shocked. Now, this is quite an usual occurrence before my first cuppa of the day, especially as the cause of this stunned state was a story on the normally genteel BBC Breakfast.

The story responsible wasn’t one of hard hitting, graphic violence, but a relatively gentle one along a theme which really resonated and picked up on a thought that had been lurking in my subconscious for some time…a realisation that we, as a collective of human beings, have fallen out of the habit of being kind.

What I think troubled me the most was the feeling that perhaps we hadn’t fallen out of the habit of kindness – this is no unfortunate accident that has befallen our race against our own good will – but more that the major players in our fast paced multimedia world, don’t value kindness. Don’t rate it. So we as a society celebrate it less and as a result we ‘train’ ourselves out of it.

A dog performs a trick you reward it with a treat. But when someone performs an act of kindness do they receive praise or recognition? Or are the column inches and media airtime lavished upon those who commit acts of horror and hatred? You don’t have to think too long and hard on that one to come up with the answer…

This feeling was supported by chatting with a friend who used to work in newspaper sales – nothing like a good murder to get unit sales up, or so he tells me!
 
If our media outlets and news agencies are quite literally trading on bad news, is it any wonder that humble kindness has slipped off the news agenda, leaving us to operate with cynicism in this beautiful, wonderful world of ours?

So, today I start a revolution. Not a massive military coup, but a small come back, currently consisting of one voice (me), with the sole aim of celebrating human kindness.

I am going to seek out the good news, encourage my clients to tell me the nice things they are doing - big & small - so we can praise them, celebrate them, hell why not even reward them!

Unit sales and viewing figures will still dominate the media, they have to for economic reasons of course and there will always be a need to understand bad news and learn the lessons tragedies teach.

All I’m saying is let’s have a balanced view of the world, the good along with the bad. Let’s take time to remember what is brilliant and beautiful about the human race. Let’s celebrate kindness, share good news and do our bit to propagate a little more love and happiness – what goes around, comes around people.

 Jenny x