Persimmon “can’t afford it”.

On the ferris wheel of campaigning issues come around – so here’s a question! 

Persimmon Homes is one of the biggest and most prosperous housebuilding companies in Europe – with a pre-tax profit of £351 million last year – so why has it done nothing to repair the damage to Tolgarrick Farmhouse (at the top of Arch Hill) caused by its neglect of a building about which it gave solemn undertakings to a formal Planning Inquiry and to Cornwall Planning Authority that it would retain, conserve and refurbish?  

Tolgarrick Farmhouse is a traditional Cornish farmhouse. Its presence helps us to interpret the landscape and setting of Truro. It gives us a reference point and, by looking south into the Parish of Kea, into Blanchelands (where Tristan and Isolde settled, having escaped from King Mark, until Isolde decided to fulfil her betrothal vow and marry the angrily jilted Cornish king), it celebrates the cultural relationship between market town and the farm, between the scholarly professions and the crafts of rural life, and between Truro and Kea Parishes.  

In recent times the case for Tolgarrick Farmhouse has been tested in the Planning System, and it has been made clear to Persimmon that Truro, official and informal, sets great store by this symbol of identity and distinctiveness – it is not a particularly special bit of architecture –  it is a typical building that we expect to find in the Cornish landscape – which is more than can be said for the off-the-shelf Persimmon estate which surrounds it. 

We thought that progress was being made. Having sat through a meeting with a Persimmon representative who told City Councillors that ‘Persimmon couldn’t afford’ to refurbish the farmhouse (one member asked how much the CEO’s salary with bonuses had been that year!), we thought that the case was sorted, and we would see appropriate fixtures and fittings, structural repairs, and, before long, signs of habitation – but no! 

In a triumph of cynicism and corporate arrogance the farmhouse has been simply ignored by Persimmon and left to decay.The only intervention is to impose increasingly visible and eye-catchingly ugly shuttering to try and create a public demand for it to be removed. 

However, Cornish people are made of sterner stuff than that! Tolgarrick Farmhouse remains a typical aspect of our rural landscape. The developer solemnly undertook to keep it and do it up- and provide a house..  Why is Persimmon so loathe to fulfil this obligation? The company should be proud to be contributing to the character and distinctiveness of the Cornish landscape. Simply (and grudgingly) adopting Cornish language names for the various estate roads is not enough – we want both our selves and those who visit and who succeed us to be able to read our landscape in depth – that is why Tolgarrick is so important. 

So! What are you going to do Messrs Devlin (Chairman), Finch (CEO) and Duxley (Finance Director)? And when? You’ve had time enough, and we’ve listened to quite enough excuses. Do what you said you would do when you got the consent from the Inquiry Inspector. 

Bert Biscoe