Hundreds of students in North Cornwall should now have received their GCSE, vocational and technical qualification results, at a time when there has never been a better range of opportunities for young people in our local area. North Cornwall students receiving their results this summer are the first group in three years to sit summer exams and faced significant disruption to their studies during the pandemic. Due to the public health situation, we introduced unprecedented support for students – including longer assessment windows for vocational and technical qualifications – and Ofqual has taken an approach to grading to ensure outcomes reflect a mid-point between summer 2019 and 2021, as we transition back to pre-pandemic arrangements. I want to congratulate all the students receiving their results and say a huge thank you to everyone who helped them get to this point.
I am thrilled to say that the first round of funding opportunities under the Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF) is now live on the Cornwall Council ‘Good Growth’ website. SPF is the UK replacement for Convergence and Objective One EU funding. I am pleased to see Cornwall Council have made the process simple and I am looking forward to seeing the many bids coming in from across North Cornwall. Cornwall Council is inviting any organisations - businesses, community organisations, public bodies, and partnerships - that can contribute to our Good Growth ambitions to come forward with their project ideas for one of the seven classes of open invitations to bid. Organisations interested in accessing the SPF must fill in a very simple one-page enquiry form on the website, and after that, they will be contacted and offered help and advice going forward. I look forward to hearing about bids from North Cornwall, and I am happy to offer my support to organisations in our constituency. More information, including how your organisation can express interest, can be obtained from my office vis [email protected] – please use the subject line ‘SPF’.
Finally, it was great to invite Karl McCartney MP, the Transport Minister, to Camelford to discuss the A39 bypass scheme. The Minister took a tour of the town centre and was also shown where the planned bypass will start and end. We also discussed the plan for a cycle way to include Camelford and the surrounding area which I am keen to see as part of Cornwall's £132 million Shared Prosperity Fund allocation from central government. It's important that we keep the Camelford bypass scheme right at the top of the agenda in the Department for Transport, and I'm very motivated to deliver as it is something that successive governments and MPs have been unable to do. Camelford really needs the bypass if we are going to be able to provide the kind of opportunities for local people that I want to see in future. I also remain concerned about air quality, and this was something I made clear to the Minister.
