At Falmouth Town Council, we are wedded to principles of co-operation and partnership. This is our model for the town, services and projects that work for people.

Our connection with local people means we are in touch with what they want and expect from the council and is the reason we have stepped up to take on services threatened with closure by Cornwall’s cash strapped Unitary Council.

From a small council with a handful of employees in a side room, squeezed between the council chamber and the art gallery, FTC has grown to take on services including the library, an entertainment venue that is the heart of our town, public toilets and an historic headland with ancient monuments to protect that fell into the ‘at risk’ category in Unitary stewardship.

We have a loan that has bought and refurbished the old Post Office in the town centre, providing office space, registry services, a meeting room and a base for staff.

Working with the Skate Park committee, we pushed a decade long dream over the line matching our ear marked reserves with grant funding to complete the skate park last year, a much needed facility for young people in our town next to the centre we support with funding for youth services.

By entering a partnership with our local community radio station, we won grant funding to refurbish an old park lodge, providing a broadcasting base, a recording studio and café, with plans to involve local schools in building new, creative skills for young people.

One failure was to stop the Unitary council closing the town’s leisure center and public swimming pool – sited on the historic Pendennis Headland – but we have worked to turn this into an opportunity. The community came forward with a CIC but their bid to take it on was rejected and it looked as the site would be sold for development in order to plug Unitary budget gaps. By working with the CIC, which became a charity and backed by strong local opinion, Falmouth Town Council persuaded the Unitary council to devolve the entire headland and leased the leisure centre site (sadly without the pool) to the charity.  This is now a thriving community centre, supported by the town council while we work together with our Labour & Co-operative MP Jayne Kirkham for the much needed new pool. .

In 2021, the council took over the Princess Pavilion, a much loved venue comprising a bar and café, gardens, bandstand and theatre. Leased out and neglected for years, then closed down and deteriorating, our focus from the start was its community value. There are many commercial events that help pay for running costs but it is also the meeting place for dozens of local groups, from sewing machinists to friendship groups that would not exist without it and we host repair cafés, “Green” days, arts events and Christmas festivities with around 64,000 visitors a year.

Our budget as a council is now just over £6.1 million but our social value is much higher.  We use local providers wherever possible and much of what we do would not be possible without partners – or would cost a lot more to precept payers. Co-operation and partnership has paid off.

We have the General Power of Competence but in terms of legislation, we are governed by the Local Government Act 1972 and come into the same category as a parish council that has a park, a bench and a couple of meetings a year. Devolution is set to continue, so I hope that the promised government reforms will mean Westminster updating these laws and recognising the value of parish, town and ‘Super Councils’ like ours.