John Spargo and Jeff Muir for Falmouth Smithick

John Spargo and Jeff Muir for Falmouth Smithick
Local campaigners John Spargo and Jeff Muir have been chosen to contest the Falmouth Smithick vacancies for Cornwall Council and Falmouth Town Council following the sad death of Candy Atherton.

John Spargo
John Spargo is a local business owner and Falmouth Town Councillor for the Smithick ward.

John has 30 years' experience working in the building industry as a designer. He owns Tallships Trading on Church Street (now in its 23rd year) and is well known as a community campaigner.

As Vice-Chair of planning on Falmouth Town Council he has attended each of the recent student housing planning enquiries and has repeatedly spoken out against inappropriate development in the town.

John is now seeking support for election to Cornwall Council where he will put his experience in planning to good effect in protecting the character of Falmouth.

John's top priorities for Falmouth and Cornwall:

1) Upgrade Falmouth Hospital
John will campaign alongside Jeff Muir to ensure Falmouth Hospital is not just kept open but is upgraded to an Urgent Treatment Centre which will mean better medical facilities that currently exist. Nationally the Lib Dems are proposing to put an extra penny on income tax which will raise an extra £6billion for our NHS. We believe local people understand that the NHS is short of cash and the the only way to improve facilities is for us all to a pay little more.

2) Planning decisions made locally
I was really shocked to see local planning decisions regarding student housing blocks overturned by outside government inspectors at recent appeals. The inspectors seemed to have scant regard for the opinion of local people. If elected to Cornwall Council I will continue to fight to protect the town's heritage, to campaign for better housing for local people, and will oppose any more applications for student blocks or HMOs in the town.

3) Holding the University to account
For good or ill, I believe the University could be the single most important influence on the future of Falmouth and its residents. As such it needs to take responsibility for the student population in the town and be held accountable for its actions. I will fight to defend the interests of the town and its tourism and marine industries and seek to ensure any further change in student numbers can only happen following genuine consultation with and the approval of local residents.

Jeff Muir

Jeff Muir is a local business owner and is a Falmouth Smithick resident who lives on Belmont Road in the heart of the ward.

After graduating from university Jeff worked as a project manager for some of the leading British archaeology companies on historic digging sites from Cornwall to Turkey.
His current business, Boscawen CEP, specialises in helping local parish and town councils in Cornwall with community engagement as part of their neighbourhood plan strategies.

Jeff's aim is to ensure local residents are properly consulted so that neighbourhoods develop along the lines that local people want - not as developers would like.

Jeff's top priorities for Falmouth:

1) Making Falmouth greener
I will work as 'green champion' on the town council to make sure that we fully embrace sustainability and to try to ensure our contractors and partners such as Cornwall Council do the same. There is the scope to do a lot more to help the environment in Falmouth such as supporting increased recycling (including the collection of food waste) better use of renewable energy sources in public buildings and shrinking our dependence on single-use plastics such as takeaway coffee cups.

2) Supporting independent shops
I will work closely with the Falmouth Business Improvement District (BID) and local traders to protect and maintain the independent character of shopping in the town. Chains such as Marks & Spencer are very welcome in the town but we must do more to help local traders not only survive but flourish in Falmouth. In particular, I would like to improve and expand the Farmers' Market and promote more social enterprise companies, those whose business model benefit local people through supporting community projects.

3) Better targeted local services
Falmouth is blessed as a town with a vibrant and diverse community. However, I do feel that sometimes the needs of certain sections of our community can be forgotten or overlooked. It would be my intention as a town councillor to work with local groups to identify vulnerable sections of our community and try to better target resources so that those with the greatest need are helped the most.