Councillors clash over Spaceport job controversy at final meeting

NCENSED councillors ignored their own lawyer's warning and hammered Cornwall Council's leadership with a barrage of questions about a top Tory councillor being given a head role at Spaceport Cornwall, which is run by the council-owned Corserv company.

- by LEE TREWHELA

The controversy was raised several times during members’ questions at the last full council meeting before the May 1 election, despite the monitoring officer - the council’s lead solicitor, Paul Grant - previously having emailed all councillors warning them that if they raised the matter they would get no answers.

Councillor Louis Gardner, a former mayor of Newquay, was appointed at the beginning of March to the £70,000-a-year role as head of future air and space at Spaceport Cornwall.

On accepting the role he stood down from his position as the Conservative cabinet member for the economy, and will stand down as a Cornwall councillor at the election.

Cllr Gardner's new role was announced days after he had attended a meeting of Cornwall’s Economic Prosperity Board (EPB), of which he was then a member, on February 27.

At that meeting the board agreed to give the Spaceport what is believed to be about £200,000 of Shared Prosperity Funding from the Government.