³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

If there were any fears that the approaching Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership might be short of ideas they will soon be dispelled by Sir John Banham's draft prospectus - a 16 page document emailed to various interested parties and now sitting on my desk.

Sir John's blueprint will please some and appal others. Indeed, I forecast some in the small and medium-sized business sector will be apoplectic. But those who like the idea of Cornwall taking ownership of some "commanding heights" of its own economy will be delighted with the goal, even if they have reservations about the way of reaching it.

Over the next few days I'll probably blog quite a bit but here are the headlines:

Sir John plans to appoint five partnership board members to each chair "Special Purpose Vehicles" - specialist companies designed to develop particular sectors of Cornwall's economy. Each company would get up to £5m "seed corn finance" - some of which would be used to remunerate these individuals with founders' shares.

The five companies proposed are:

Cornwall Real Estate Investment Trust
Cornwall Green Energy
Falmouth Marine Developments
Cornwall Small Business Services
Cornwall Post Office Services

As a taste of the radical thinking now up for discussion, Sir John writes:

"Every local authority with housing responsibilities could sponsor a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) in which its own pension fund would be a corner-stone investor, to meet local demand for energy-efficient homes costing £75,000 - £80,000 each."

The last person I know to suggest using pension funds in this way was Tony Benn in the 1970s. But those hoping to see an organisation which simply distributes grants to small business will be disappointed.

There is also talk of setting up an energy supply company to provide cheap electricity to public buildings and turning Falmouth into a destination for international cruises.

I've asked Cornwall Council if these ideas are shared by chief executive Kevin Lavery - the response was "this is a very early draft and we have no comment." I've also put in a call to Sir John and hope we'll be able to hear from him on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Cornwall's breakfast programme tomorrow morning.